Customer 2017

Customer Forces Canvas

One interview, one page: the push, pull, friction, and inertia behind a customer's switch.

What it is

A canvas you fill after each customer interview: the triggering event, the push of the old way, the pull of the new, the anxieties and habits fighting the switch, and what they actually did. Run five interviews through it and the pattern of why customers move (or don't) stops being a debate.

Reach for it when

• Interview notes pile up and every reader takes away a different story
• A team can't explain why trials don't convert
• Discovery research needs a repeatable shape a whole team can use

Running it

1. Fill it within an hour of the interview, from notes, one canvas per interviewee.
2. Anchor on the triggering event and the first thought. The story starts before your product appears.
3. Name the anxieties in the customer's words. Those are your onboarding backlog.
4. After five canvases, cluster the forces across them. That cluster is the finding.