Ask Teresa: For Customer Interviews, Who Counts as a Customer?

Teresa Torres addresses a recurring question from product teams: who should count as a customer for interviews in continuous discovery. She argues that a customer is whoever uses the product or makes the purchase decision, and that the team's desired outcome should determine which of those roles to interview each week. She walks through B2C, B2B, B2B2C, marketplace, internal-tool, and platform/API contexts, showing how the audience narrows as companies mature. The core warning is against pinballing between roles, which prevents teams from building deep expertise. Scoping interviews to a single outcome and a focused set of roles makes discovery more effective.

01Key takeaways

• Define a customer as whoever uses your product or makes the purchase decision.
• Let your desired outcome determine which role you interview each week.
• Avoid pinballing between roles; develop deep expertise in one audience at a time.
• Interview internal colleagues with story-based sessions rather than just collecting feature requests.
• For API products, combine story-based interviews with observing people use the product.

02Key sections

Defining a customer

A customer is anyone using the product or making the purchase decision. Product teams should map who plays each role before choosing whom to interview.

B2C and B2B contexts

Subscription products interview current and former subscribers, while B2B products separate buyers from end-users, with teams narrowing focus as they grow.

Multi-tier and marketplace products

B2B2C and two-sided marketplaces involve several audiences, and maturing companies typically assign each team a single audience to interview.

Internal customers and platform teams

Internal tools and developer platforms require story-based interviews, and API products benefit from pairing observation with hands-on help.

Avoiding the pinball mistake

Switching between roles without depth wastes effort, so the outcome should set a scope that lets the team focus its interview efforts.

03From the post

“Whenever I introduce the topic of customer interviews (the foundational element of continuous discovery), I get a lot of questions about who counts as a customer. Everyone thinks their company context is unique—whether they’re B2B or B2B2C or some other combination of letters and numbers. And while yes,”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.