Product in Practice: Automating Customer Interview Recruiting at Zonar Systems

Teresa Torres's continuous-discovery practice depends on interviewing customers every week, but finding participants is the hardest part and often blocks the habit. This Product in Practice piece profiles Dan Clem at Zonar Systems, who automated recruiting by placing an in-app pop-up that links users to a self-serve Microsoft Bookings page. The setup took about an hour and quickly produced around 20 interviews without manual outreach. The story shows that recruiting users inside the product can make continuous interviewing sustainable, and it offers practical tips on no-show rates, lead time, and backup dial-in options.

01Key takeaways

• Recruit participants from inside the product so users can self-schedule without manual outreach.
• Reuse tools you already have, such as an in-app messaging tool and a scheduling page, to build the flow quickly.
• Overbook interviews by roughly double, since many participants will not show up.
• Allow extra lead time when targeting rare customer types, and test the recruiting flow before launch.
• Profile interviewees by their actual product usage and share insights across teams to build buy-in.

02Key sections

The core problem: finding people to talk to

Busy product teams struggle to schedule weekly interviews, and recruiting is the bottleneck. The article frames automation as the way to make the habit sustainable.

Zonar's context and goals

Dan Clem's team serves commercial fleet operators and is just beginning its continuous discovery work, focused on growing weekly active users and improving ease of use.

The aha moment

While planning an in-app survey for a new customer segment, Dan proposed replacing the email-collection step with a pop-up that lets users book their own interview slots.

Building the workflow and early results

A Pendo pop-up linked to Microsoft Bookings was built in about an hour, and interviews began filling the calendar overnight. The team profiled interviewees by in-app behavior and shared findings with other teams.

Practical tips

Book extra interviews to cover no-shows, allow lead time for rare segments, offer a phone dial-in backup, and start building as soon as autonomy allows.

03From the post

“Not having enough time is one of the main reasons people say they can’t interview customers every week. And this is not just an empty excuse—most product people’s calendars are packed. So the idea of trying to carve out time to recruit and schedule interviews might feel”

04Frameworks mentioned

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