Customer research means learning directly from buyers why they look for a solution, how they decide and what success means to them. Jobs to be done (JTBD) is a framework for that research: it focuses on the progress a customer wants to make in a specific situation, not their demographics, so offers and messages match real reasons to buy.
Most businesses know a lot about who their customers are and far less about why they buy. Analytics shows clicks, a CRM shows deal stages, but neither explains what was happening in the customer’s world the week they started searching. This guide shows how to run practical customer research using the jobs-to-be-done lens, and how to turn what you hear into go-to-market decisions.
Key takeaways
- Customers do not buy products; they hire them to make progress in a specific situation. Understanding that situation explains more than demographics.
- The most useful interviews are with recent buyers and recent switchers, about a real decision they made.
- Ask about what happened, not what people think they would do. Past behaviour is more reliable than predictions.
- Map the forces of progress: the push of the problem, the pull of the new solution, and the anxiety and habit that hold buyers back.
- Turn findings into decisions: segments, messages, website content, sales questions and roadmap priorities.
Why is customer research more important in B2B now?
Buying decisions now involve more people and more independent research, so assumptions about “the customer” are riskier than ever. Forrester’s State of Business Buying, 2024 reports that on average 13 people are involved in a B2B buying decision, 89% of purchases involve two or more departments, and 81% of buyers expressed dissatisfaction with the provider they chose. 6sense’s 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report, based on nearly 4,000 buyer responses, found that buyers initiated 79% of buyer-seller engagements.
How B2B buying has changed
A Gartner survey of 646 B2B buyers published in March 2026 found that 45% had used AI during a recent purchase. When buyers research with AI and approach sellers late, the only reliable way to understand their decision is to ask them directly.
What is jobs to be done, in plain language?
The idea, popularised by Clayton Christensen and colleagues in Harvard Business Review, is that customers “hire” a product or service to get a job done in a particular circumstance. The job is the progress they want, and it has three dimensions:
| Dimension | Question | Example: a founder hiring a marketing agency |
|---|---|---|
| Functional | What practical task must get done? | Generate a steady flow of qualified enquiries |
| Emotional | How do they want to feel? | Confident that marketing money is not being wasted |
| Social | How do they want to be seen? | As a leader who has growth under control in front of investors and the board |
A job statement is often written as: “When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome].” For example: “When our sales team says the leads are poor, I want to see where each lead came from and what happened to it, so I can fix what is broken instead of cutting the budget.”
This is different from a persona. A persona describes who the buyer is; a job describes the situation and progress that drive a decision. Both are useful. Our ideal customer profile guide covers the account-level view.
Who should you interview?
The best interviewees made a real decision recently, so the memory is fresh and specific.
- Recent customers (signed within the last three to six months): why they started looking, what they compared and why they chose you.
- Recent switchers: customers who moved to you from a competitor, or away from you. Switching reveals the forces behind a decision most clearly.
- Lost prospects: buyers who evaluated you and chose another option or did nothing.
- Different roles in the buying group: the user, the budget holder and the person who signed off, because each saw a different decision.
For most growing businesses, 8 to 12 interviews per segment reveal the main patterns. Stop when new interviews mostly repeat what you have heard. Offer a small thank-you where appropriate and explain how you will use their answers; follow applicable privacy rules when recording.
How do you run a jobs-to-be-done interview?
A JTBD interview reconstructs the timeline of a decision. Ask about specific moments and actions, not opinions or hypothetical preferences.
| Stage | What you are learning | Example questions |
|---|---|---|
| First thought | The trigger | “When did you first think you needed to change something? What was happening then?” |
| Passive looking | Early signals and research | “What did you notice or read before you started looking seriously?” |
| Active looking | Alternatives and criteria | “Which options did you look at? How did you compare them? Who else was involved?” |
| Deciding | Final reasons and doubts | “What nearly stopped you? What made you choose in the end?” |
| First use | Expectations versus reality | “What did you expect in the first month? What surprised you?” |
| Ongoing | Value and risk of churn | “How would you describe the value to a colleague today? What would make you switch?” |
Practical tips:
- Keep the interviewer neutral. Someone other than the salesperson usually gets more honest answers.
- Ask “what happened next?” repeatedly to keep the story concrete.
- Do not pitch or defend. If a customer criticises you, ask for more detail.
- Record and transcribe with permission, so you can quote exact words later.
How do you write questions that get honest answers?
Small changes in wording make a big difference to the quality of what you learn. Prefer questions about real past events and open descriptions over questions that ask people to predict or judge:
| Avoid | Why | Ask instead |
|---|---|---|
| “Would you use a feature that does X?” | People are poor at predicting their own behaviour | “Tell me about the last time you needed to do X. What did you do?” |
| “Did you choose us because of our support?” | Leading; suggests the answer | “What made you decide in the end?” |
| “How satisfied are you on a scale of 1 to 10?” | A number without a story explains little | “How would you describe what changed to a colleague?” |
| “What features should we build?” | Customers describe solutions, not needs | “What were you trying to get done when that became a problem?” |
| “Why didn’t you buy from us?” | Can feel confrontational | “Walk me through how you compared the options.” |
Silence is also a tool. After an answer, wait a few seconds before the next question; people often add the most useful detail when they fill the pause.
What are the forces of progress?
A helpful way to analyse interviews is to map four forces that act on every decision. Two push the buyer towards change; two hold them back.
The four forces behind a switching decision
Change happens when push and pull are stronger than anxiety and habit.
The current problem becomes painful: missed targets, wasted spend, a failed tool.
The promise of a better outcome that the buyer can picture.
Fear the new option will not work, cost of switching and comfort with the current way.
Most marketing focuses only on the pull, describing how good the new solution is. Interviews usually show that reducing anxiety (clear scope, proof, a low-risk first step) and acknowledging habit (making switching easy) win as many deals as a stronger promise.
How do you turn interviews into insight?
- Write a short summary of each interview: trigger, alternatives, final reason, main doubt and the outcome they describe.
- Tag recurring themes across interviews: the same trigger, the same anxiety, the same words.
- Group buyers by job, not by industry. You may find two distinct jobs in one industry, or one job shared across several.
- Write job statements for each group, using customer language.
- Rank by opportunity: how common the job is, how valuable it is and how well you serve it compared with alternatives.
AI tools can help summarise transcripts and cluster themes, but check every summary against the original recording; small misreadings can change the conclusion.
How do you use customer research in go-to-market decisions?
Research only pays off when it changes what the business does. Use findings in five places:
| Area | Decision informed by research | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| Segmentation | Which jobs and situations to target first | ICP and segmentation |
| Messaging | Headlines in customer language; proof that reduces anxiety | Value proposition design |
| Content | Topics around real triggers and questions | Content strategy |
| Sales | Discovery questions and objection handling | Lead qualification |
| Product and offer | Which features, packages or onboarding steps matter most | Product-market fit |
Which other research methods complement interviews?
Interviews explain why. Other methods show how many and how often. Combine them:
- Short surveys to check how common a theme from interviews is across a larger group.
- Sales call recordings to hear how prospects describe problems in the moment.
- Support tickets and reviews to find recurring frustrations after purchase.
- Search and AI query research to see how buyers phrase problems when researching alone; see our keyword research and search intent guide.
- Product and website analytics to see what buyers do, as a check on what they say.
How do you recruit customers for interviews?
Getting interviews is usually easier than teams expect, especially with recent customers. A simple process works:
- Make a list of 20 to 30 recent customers, switchers and lost prospects from your CRM.
- Send a short, personal request from someone they know, explaining that you want to learn how they made their decision, that it takes 30 minutes and that you will not sell during the call.
- Offer flexible times and a video or phone option; a small thank-you such as a gift card or a free resource is appropriate where your policies allow.
- Confirm consent for recording and explain how notes will be stored and used.
- Book interviews close together, ideally within two or three weeks, so you can compare answers while they are fresh.
Lost prospects are harder to reach. Keep the request brief, make it clear you are not trying to reopen the deal and accept that response rates will be lower.
What should an interview summary include?
A consistent summary for every interview makes patterns easier to spot. Use the same fields each time:
| Field | What to record | Illustrative entry |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | The event that started the search | “Board asked why marketing spend rose but leads did not.” |
| Job statement | When…, I want to…, so I can… | “When leadership questions spend, I want clear lead-to-revenue reports, so I can defend the budget.” |
| Alternatives | Options considered, including doing nothing | Hire an analyst; buy a dashboard tool; keep spreadsheets |
| Push and pull | Pain of the old way; appeal of the new | Weekly report arguments; one trusted dashboard |
| Anxiety and habit | What nearly stopped the decision | Fear of a long setup; team used to old reports |
| Decisive reason | Why they chose this option | Fixed six-week setup and training included |
| Exact quotes | Phrases worth reusing in messaging | “I just want one set of numbers everyone believes.” |
The entries above are illustrative. Store summaries where marketing, sales and product can all read them, not in one person’s notebook.
How do you share research so the team uses it?
Research changes decisions only when people see it. A few habits help:
- Share short clips or quotes in team meetings; hearing a customer’s words is more persuasive than a summary slide.
- Publish a one-page findings brief per segment: top jobs, triggers, anxieties and the words customers use.
- Link findings to actions: for each insight, note the page, message, sales question or product change it affects.
- Revisit quarterly, adding new interviews so the picture stays current.
What does customer research look like in practice?
Imagine a hypothetical SaaS company selling scheduling software to clinics. It assumes clinics buy to reduce admin time and markets accordingly. Ten interviews with recent customers reveal a different trigger: most started looking after a run of patient no-shows hurt revenue, and the decisive feature was automated WhatsApp reminders. The biggest anxiety was moving existing appointment data.
The company rewrites its home page around reducing no-shows, adds a migration support promise to reduce anxiety and changes sales discovery to ask about missed appointments. These are illustrative decisions, not results from a Bargaon client.
What are the most common customer research mistakes?
- Asking customers what they want instead of what they did and why.
- Interviewing only happy customers, which hides reasons for loss and churn.
- Leading questions that suggest the answer you hope for.
- Treating one memorable interview as the truth rather than looking for patterns.
- Researching once and stopping; markets and buying behaviour change.
- Keeping findings in a slide deck instead of feeding them into messaging, content and sales.
Which related guides should you read next?
- Value proposition design turns research findings into a clear promise.
- Competitor analysis uses buyer interviews to compare alternatives honestly.
- Go-to-market strategy shows how research shapes market entry.
- Marketing plan template uses these insights to set priorities and budgets.
Frequently asked questions
How many customer interviews do I need?
For most segments, 8 to 12 interviews reveal the main patterns. Continue until new interviews mostly repeat what you have already heard.
Is jobs to be done only for product companies?
No. Service businesses, agencies and D2C brands can all use it to understand why customers buy and what progress they expect.
What is the difference between a persona and a job to be done?
A persona describes the buyer’s characteristics. A job to be done describes the situation and the progress they want. Jobs often explain buying decisions better.
Can surveys replace interviews?
Surveys are useful for checking how common a theme is, but they rarely uncover new reasons. Start with interviews, then use surveys to size what you found.
How often should customer research be done?
Run a focused round before major positioning or product decisions and keep a light, ongoing rhythm, such as a few interviews each month.
Should we pay customers for interviews?
A small thank-you, such as a gift card or a useful resource, is common and improves response rates. Keep it modest so it does not influence what people say, and follow your own company policies.
Sources and further reading
- Forrester: The State of Business Buying, 2024 (December 2024).
- 6sense: 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report (nearly 4,000 buyer responses).
- Gartner: 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience (646 B2B buyers, published March 2026).
- Harvard Business Review: Know your customers’ jobs to be done (framework reference).
Want to know why your customers really buy? Bargaon’s go-to-market strategy service starts with customer interviews and turns the findings into segments, messages and a launch plan.