Voice of Customer research only works if the questions don’t give away the answer. On the EU Connected Dispenser project we ran 57 stakeholder interviews over 33 hours so the team wouldn’t design around the pain point it had assumed.
In an open-ended session I ask what someone’s day looks like and where it breaks down. I don’t ask whether they’d like a specific feature. The Sway personas show a compact version: each one records what the person says, thinks, does, feels, wants, and needs, which stops the interviewer from putting words in their mouth.
Leading question
"Would you use a feature that tracks maintenance history automatically?" Most people will say yes to be polite.
Open-ended version
"Walk me through the last time you needed to check a repair history. What did you do?" You hear the real workaround, and you learn whether the problem is worth solving.
Three habits keep my VOC sessions honest:
- Ask about the last specific time. People remember "the last time" better than "usually."
- Let silence sit. The answer after a pause is often more candid than the first one.
- Write down verbatim quotes. Paraphrasing is where a researcher’s bias gets in.