Practical guide to telephone interview

Interview is one of the commonly used research methods in psychology. For product managers, effective user research is essentially a process of mining more real user needs from a psychological perspective and method. This article will talk to you about what interview methods are and what problems we should pay attention to when we focus on telephone interviews.

First of all, the interview is a "premeditated chat"

"Interview", as its name implies, is an act conducted through oral conversations such as "talking" and "chatting". As a research method, it must also have a specific purpose and implementation process to ensure that visitors can collect useful information in this way. Before using it, you need to know the following functions:

1. Interview is just a tool for collecting data, from which you can draw the hypothesis that A and B may be related, but remember not to easily construct the causal relationship between A and B, which may make your user research road subjective and one-sided.

2. In the field of interview, the interviewer and the interviewee coexist, which can be face to face, video, voice and other forms; It can be one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-one

3. The interview process is a set of "question-answer-feedback ……" reciprocating interaction, but the whole rhythm is controlled by the interviewer.

4. Interviews are divided into structured interviews, semi-structured interviews and unstructured interviews according to the degree of openness from low to high. Generally speaking, the stronger the structure, the higher the standardization of the process; The lower the structure, the higher the comprehensive requirements for the interviewer's sensitivity, exploration ability and field control ability. Therefore, when choosing different interview types, we need to comprehensively consider various factors.

Compared with daily chat, the interview is "premeditated". After you have a correct understanding of the interview and normal expectations, let's take a look at what the interview should do.

Second, the interview process

In order to describe the whole process more clearly, we presuppose a background: considering the cost and efficiency, the product team decided to conduct a round of related research on the use of electronic devices by parents of children aged 3-6. At the same time, because the product is still in the initial planning stage and needs more information, it is planned to be implemented in the form of semi-structured interviews.

(1) preparatory work

1. Personnel preparation

（ 1）

Interviewer is one of the key variables that affect the interview effect. We often say that "speaking is an art", and the interview is even more professional. TA needs to be familiar with the business first, so as to ensure that the whole interview is on the main line; At the same time, we should be familiar with the interviewed groups as much as possible, so that the interviewees can feel that they are being listened to and understood more easily during the interview. For example, when the interview outline lists cartoons that children usually watch, it is not hard to imagine how bad the interview would be if the interviewer had never even heard of "Super Flash" and "Peggy Pig".

In order to reduce the influence of the differences between interviewers on the follow-up analysis, the same interviewer can be the main interviewer. When more than one person needs to participate, unified training is needed before the interview. In addition, if conditions permit, it is suggested that there should be an interviewer and a recorder for each interview.

(2) Respondents

Respondents should first consider whether the key features match, which requires in-depth analysis of the interview content. Whether it is a research or a product, there must be some assumptions first, from which the key characteristics of the interviewee can be inferred. For example, in the preset interview content, parents' educational background, family's economic level, children's age division, children's gender and so on. They may all be variables that have a great influence on the results, so when choosing interviewees, these factors need to be considered so that each interviewee can represent one kind of people as much as possible.

When making an appointment with the interviewee, it is suggested to confirm it three times: first, the person closest to the interviewee sends an interview invitation to determine the appropriate time; In order to prevent the interviewee from forgetting or hesitating, reconfirm the time the day before the interview; On the day of the interview, the interviewer can briefly introduce himself by SMS (SMS or WeChat) and make an appointment for the last time.

2. Preparation of interview outline

For unstructured interviews, it is necessary to list the interview outline in advance according to the interview objectives. Although in the interview process, the interviewer can flexibly arrange the order of content and the way of asking questions according to the respondents' answers, they are all carried out around this outline. The formulation of the outline is essentially the process of disassembling the interview objectives.

Anyone who has seen "Qi Pa Shuo" should be familiar with the skill of "breaking the topic". Many professional debaters show their unique thinking on a topic from the beginning of breaking the topic, and then guide the audience to win the vote step by step.

The same is true of the interview outline. It is necessary to clarify the theme and objectives of the interview first, and then discuss what methods, what types of questions, and how to organize the order. So as to obtain the desired information.

(2) Implement

The implementation process can be divided into the following steps:

1. Opening Ceremony: Identify yourself, explain your goals, and explain your privacy and precautions.

Every interviewee has the right to know the interview background and privacy protection, which is the most basic respect for the interviewee. At the same time, explaining the relevant rights and interests and precautions before the official start of the interview can also avoid possible disputes in the future.

"(? ), hello, this is (). Thank you very much for your telephone interview with us today. The topic of today's interview is (? ), we will keep all the contents of your statement confidential, and the information obtained will only be used for internal product development. The whole interview takes about (? ) minutes, there are several points for attention to communicate with you in advance: (? ) 。 If you have no other questions, our interview will officially begin. "

In addition, it is recommended to inform the interviewee in advance if the sound is played, the interview process is recorded and other interviewers or recorders are present.

2. Transition: Understand the basic information and guide the respondents to lay down their defenses.

The most important purpose of the transition is to create a relaxed atmosphere for the interview. At the same time, first-hand information is obtained through "pulling the family". For example, parents' location, children's gender, children's age and so on. Although this information will be collected in other ways before the interview, it may be different from the real information, so it is more reliable to reconfirm it during the interview.

In the transitional stage, the key to the interview problem is "no threshold, no distance" and the best effect of the interview is "comfort". No threshold means that the questions initiated are questions that parents can answer without investing too much cognitive resources; No distance means that the questions and methods asked are easy for the respondents to accept, and they are not alert. You can compare the following two interview methods:

-How old is your child this year? (5 years old) What class are you in kindergarten now? (middle class)

-Is your child in kindergarten? What class are you taking? (Middle class) Are you five years old this year? (Yes, just over 5 years old)

From the results, the information obtained by the two ways of questioning is the same, but as an interview in the transitional stage, the second way is more "comfortable". The age of a child is a relatively private issue, but whether the child goes to kindergarten is a neutral issue. For parents, the threshold of the latter is lower. In the second way, the interviewer infers the child's age according to the previous answer, and then verifies the parents with the inferred age, so that whether it is right or wrong, the parents are only judging what the interviewer speculates, and they have unconsciously exposed the child's privacy.

3. Focus: Ask questions, talk and dig around the core issues.

Different from the problems in the transitional stage, the focused problems need to be "correct". The right here is not a right or wrong judgment, but an appropriate and appropriate judgment.

In the book Cognitive Surplus, the author mentioned a point: "A wrong answer is caused by a wrong question". For example, he said that at the beginning of 2 1 century, there were a lot of reports about the elderly using social tools. If the question is: "Will the elders accept these new technologies that confuse them?" The answer can only be no. The correct question should be: "Will elders adopt new ways to communicate with friends and parents?" The difference between the two problems lies in the different concerns of the elderly in using social tools: the former only sees the superficial phenomenon and ignores the internal needs of using social tools.

Therefore, the problem of focusing needs to be gradual and to the essence. For example, it is useless to know whether parents support or oppose children's use of electronic devices. More importantly, the role of electronic devices in different families, what functions parents support to use electronic devices to meet what needs, and what attributes parents oppose to electronic devices have an impact on their lives.

In the focus session, according to the interview objectives, there may be several main lines of questions. In the interview process, in order to make the results more logical and clear coding, there are the following suggestions:

(1) Each main line follows the funnel principle, starting from a wider range of issues and slowly focusing on specific and specific issues. For example, if you care about what cartoons children watch on their mobile phones, you can ask "Do children usually use their mobile phones", "What do they do with their mobile phones" and then ask "What cartoons do they watch".

(2) There is a certain logic between the main lines. For example, electronic equipment can be divided into living room, bedroom, car, etc. according to usage scenarios; It can also be divided into mobile phones, tablet computers, televisions, etc. According to the type of electronic equipment; It can also be divided into getting up in the morning, eating, playing games and sleeping according to time and life events. Each category can be a main line.

(3) Flexibility, flexibility. Don't forcibly pull back the interviewees wandering between the main lines, but quickly judge whether the interviewees' "out of control" is due to personal expression problems or unreasonable predetermined "logic", and respond flexibly and adjust quickly. When the interviewee is really far from the topic, don't interrupt them stiffly, but let them feel that they are being listened to and respected as always, and then let the interviewee return to the topic with new questions.

summary

List the questions in the outline at the end of the interview, and you can have a short summary. First, let the respondents really feel "I said so much, you really listened"; The second is to summarize what the interviewees described or put forward, which can also make them check whether the records they made are accurate again.

5. Closing the case: Thank you and explain the subsequent rights and interests.

Finally, we need to thank the interviewees. If conditions permit, it is suggested to bring "unexpected surprises" to the respondents. For example, at the beginning, the interviewer mentioned to the interviewee that participating in the interview can experience the product for free; At the end, you can mention again how to get free rights and interests, so that they can feel closer to these rights psychologically. In addition, in the interview, if parents mention a troublesome problem in educating their children, they can communicate with their parents professionally at the end of the interview, or tell their parents to consult experts in related fields and give professional advice for their reference.

There is a peak-to-end rule in psychology, which means that people have the deepest memory of the peak and end point of the process. The emergence of peak experience requires the interviewer to capture a suitable opportunity sensitively according to the respondents' answers or emotions, and let them have a pleasant experience through feedback to their parents. For example, "the desire to speak is satisfied" is a pleasant experience; "Children's behavior is praised" is also a pleasant experience. Finally, specific professional advice for parents' doubts can be the ultimate experience. "I'm just saying, you still take it to heart."

③ Organize records.

Calling doesn't mean the interview is over. It is an arduous task to sort out and code the interview content.

When sorting out the interview records, we should be "original", do not add personal subjective judgment, and try to restore the interview process.

Coding is to sum up valuable concepts and events from original materials, code them, for example, event A is coded as 1, and then count the frequency of 1 among all respondents. Coding is an intermediate step in quantitative analysis of text data. When coding, it can be coded from top to bottom according to the existing research results or industry reports, or from bottom to top according to the interview content of the interviewee.

⑷ Analysis

Analysis is to use the results of interviews to guide the process of product development. At this point, a complete interview is over.

Many times, we may also interview the interviewees twice according to the analysis results to get more information.

Third, some skills of telephone interview.

In the telephone interview, there are many ways to get information through body movements and facial expressions, because only voices are heard, but no one is heard, which leads to problems that will not be encountered in face-to-face interviews. For example, because the interviewer can't see the expression of the interviewee's thinking, he is eager to ask questions in order not to be cold, which interrupts the interviewee's thinking; In the process of expression, because interviewees can't see the interviewer's listening state, they will repeatedly confirm whether they can hear it ... these are all factors that will greatly reduce the interview effect. When you have a telephone interview, you might as well try the following skills:

1. "audible voice" and "invisible movements and expressions", don't miss one.

Keep silent for a while, maybe there will be a surprise.

3. Don't be stingy with modal particles

Generally speaking, interview is a common user research method, especially in the early stage of research; Telephone interview is a relatively efficient method. However, any method is to solve the problem, so the key is to find out what the problem is and then choose the appropriate solution.