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Deploy Empathy: A Practical Guide to Interviewing Customers
#1 on Product HuntOver 2,500 copies sold worldwide!"Deploy Empathy is, far and away, the best book I've ever read on user interviews, filled with tactical insights that were new even having done hundreds of them." - Patrick McKenzie (aka patio11), Founder, Kalzumeus SoftwareIf you're interested in implementing Jobs to be Done—whether you're a seasoned practitioner or new to the JTBD world—this practical guide to qualitative customer interviews belongs on your bookshelf alongside the books of Bob Moesta, Jim Kalbach, and Clayton Christensen.Deploy Empathy is underpinned by a key how you ask a question matters just as much as the questions you ask. In order to thoroughly understand customer jobs to be done and pull out their hidden needs, desires, and processes, you need to ask questions empathetically.Thankfully, empathy is a skill that anyone can learn. Deploy Empathy will help you learn the skill of interviewing your customers and help you learn to truly listen to them. Armed with the tactics you’ll learn in this book and the toolbox of scripts and phrases, you'll be able to sell more of your existing product, build the right features that will delight your customers, and stop churn in its tracks.
By the end of this book, you’ll be able to interview customers, clients, stakeholders and potential customers with confidence.
"A smart look at one of business's most overlooked but critical topics." - Morgan Housel, Partner at Collaborative Fund and Author of the International Best-Seller The Psychology of Money
By the end of this book, you’ll be able to interview customers, clients, stakeholders and potential customers with confidence.
"A smart look at one of business's most overlooked but critical topics." - Morgan Housel, Partner at Collaborative Fund and Author of the International Best-Seller The Psychology of Money
324 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 25, 2021
96 people are currently reading
617 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
February 23, 2023
If you've read and liked the Mom Test, you should read this book. This one covers interviewing customers for the purpose of exploring a new product, but also what you should develop next, how to avoid losing customers, etc. In the life cycle of a new business, after mastering the Mom Test to learn what to build, you need to master Deploying Empathy to keep on building great things over and over.
I have to admit that I couldn't guess what the contents were after reading the title (then again, "Mom Test" isn't clear either), so it took me way too long to pick it up and I ended up only picking it up when I explicitly asked for this type of book and someone I trust (Rob Walling) recommended it to me.
What I really like about this book is that it not only contains the what and the why, but also the how. If you are terrified about the idea of customer interviews and customer interactions, this book is full of scripts where you just plug in your product name and read them mechanically. They won't be great interviews, but they'll be pretty good. I think if I had read this book in 2014, it could have radically changed my life.
I have to admit that I couldn't guess what the contents were after reading the title (then again, "Mom Test" isn't clear either), so it took me way too long to pick it up and I ended up only picking it up when I explicitly asked for this type of book and someone I trust (Rob Walling) recommended it to me.
What I really like about this book is that it not only contains the what and the why, but also the how. If you are terrified about the idea of customer interviews and customer interactions, this book is full of scripts where you just plug in your product name and read them mechanically. They won't be great interviews, but they'll be pretty good. I think if I had read this book in 2014, it could have radically changed my life.
January 3, 2022
I'm a software developer who has I've read the Mom Test.
I totally understood that I needed to talk to customers instead of building first. And, thanks to the Mom Test, I knew that just asking if my idea was good or not was a fruitless question.
Still, I struggled to actually interview a customer or prospective customer. I didn't really know what to say.
Well, after reading (and re-reading) Deploy Empathy, I now know what to say...but perhaps even more importantly, I know how to say it and what not to say.
This book has helped me be a better listener overall too. It's lessons and value extend beyond the business world.
I totally understood that I needed to talk to customers instead of building first. And, thanks to the Mom Test, I knew that just asking if my idea was good or not was a fruitless question.
Still, I struggled to actually interview a customer or prospective customer. I didn't really know what to say.
Well, after reading (and re-reading) Deploy Empathy, I now know what to say...but perhaps even more importantly, I know how to say it and what not to say.
This book has helped me be a better listener overall too. It's lessons and value extend beyond the business world.
January 11, 2024
Great intro for starting out with customer interviews. Incredibly practical, with tips how to find people to talk to, interview scripts and even a sample interview. It's also packed with references to other books do deepen the knowledge.
April 9, 2023
It’s a nice book for someone who is very uncomfortable with the idea of speaking to users to uncover opportunities. I did feel at times that the majority of book content is borrowed from other sources; but it still would recommend it as it was helpful how the author has put the content together and gave the scripts to use in the interviews.
March 29, 2023
This book gives practical advice and examples on how to conduct customer interviews and user research. It will be useful for founders, entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, and everyone who wants to better understand customers, validate ideas and products that they're building. And it's especially valuable for those who've never done interviews or don't know where to start.
While it doesn't go deeply into all areas of interviewing and research, it's a great foundation. Additionally, the author provides a variety of resources to dig deeper into.
While it doesn't go deeply into all areas of interviewing and research, it's a great foundation. Additionally, the author provides a variety of resources to dig deeper into.
December 12, 2024
The scripts and sample questions are useful when starting out in customer interviews.
My main issues with the text were
1.) Poor quality: several chapters end mid-sentence, without any kind of wrapup or takeaway. Pages 245 and 249 trail off into nothing. The cover curls up after a few reads.
2.) Lack of rigor and balance. Tone is too conversational. Some chapters drone on for pages and pages, while some are two pages long. I understand the need to speak to everybody, but people reading the book want a result.
3.) Wind and fluff: We don't want to read wasted words, like the 100th time she says, "It's okay if ___." We don't want to be told that everything "is okay." Tell us what to do! Be concise, surgical even. Tap your expertise. Droning on and on about "It's okay if you do this, okay if you do that, also okay if you feel that way...." is just wind. Time isn't infinite, so neither is patience.
4.) Lack of images. The book contains few images, even when things like the Pain-Frequency Matrix and shared-screen interview layout simply beg for visual aids.
5.) Poor recommendations. Some of the other books recommended feel like name drops rather than genuine continuation or deep dives of the topics at hand. For example, when discussing how to ask customers what they would pay, the chapter ends by recommending Stripe salaryman Patrick McKenzie's "Pricing Low-Touch SaaS", one of the most long-winded, impractical blog articles you could read as a founder looking for real truth and answers. Likewise, strategies from ex-FBI agent Chris Voss' "Never Split the Difference" have no place in a customer interview, because an FBI agent negotiating a confession out of a criminal doesn't have to continue the relationship and build a long-term rapport of mutual trust with someone going to jail. Your late-night DJ voice might coax them, but what you really need is a strong, lasting relationship, and strategies that prioritize confession in the moment are like fool's gold: they don't make them a lifetime customer. If anything, someone who feels swindled or duped will lose trust in you and your product.
Don't point us to these books; it feels like an affiliate cash grab. Just distill their most valuable lessons in your own words and put them in the text itself, as an afterword/footnote/appendix if you must!
6.) Lack of real-world stakes. Michele Hansen mentions Geocodio but I still don't know what the company does. Is this the business discussed in her podcast, that tells people what restaurants are open late at night? She never explicitly introduces her company's customer, even though it's the only realm where stakes matter to her. The sample interview transcript, the book's main selling point, doesn't even cover her product -- it's about a generic file upload job board website whose user she interviews for someone else. Just like it's hard to take a user's payment intent seriously without asking for a credit card number or payment, it's hard to take the advice and script of someone who has no skin in the game of the product whose user she's interviewing. The examples need to come from Geocodio users, not some 3rd party company. She has great experiences and insight from running Geocodio, but stunningly doesn't share the nitty-gritty details or the background story of her company to add credibility beyond surface-level numbers.
7.) Impractical and unrealistic. Customers are rarely this outspoken and well-behaved. They have goals to execute and don't want their comments and problems parroted back to them like a baby. The book should include stakeholders who are impatient like people in the real world. If they are giving you short answers, the solution isn't to reschedule the interview or ask for a better time/person; the solution is valuing their time, a sense of urgency, and asking more penetrating questions. Issues don't surface when you prompt them like a baby, agreeing with everything they say and deferring any feature requests like they don't matter. People wear masks; the goal for a user conversation that surfaces truth is to get the mask to fall, and the only way to do that is to get on their side -- as soon as possible, with minimal beating around the bush!
My main positive takeaway from the book is that much of the skill in surfacing customer feelings and truth is fuzzy: psychological, social, and emotional. It transcends technical troubleshooting. So the book's mention of building and maintaining user trust is spot on. The problem with reinforcing this message, though, is that the book treats people as if they have infinite time, energy, patience, and a universal desire to connect, share their thoughts, and answer your questions.
You can't wear a mask and use the same script for every user because not every user behaves that way; you must intuit user motivations both before and during the conversation, and often that involves cutting out the small talk, being authentic (instead of superficially nice in "your most harmless voice"), reducing your parroting, rolling up your sleeves and getting in the trenches with them.
Maybe if you were a B2B salesforce selling your subscription service to a big company -- like the universities often mentioned in this book -- where decisions involve several layers of management, time delays, and you're interviewing people on their company time multiple layers away from true stakeholders and people who have skin/money/success on the line, you can afford this level of indifference. Because everything "is okay."
But consumer product end users don't work that way. Teens with a 2-second attention span, kids fidgeting in school unable to resist the pull of their favorite TikTok reel or competitive video game, parents who need their child to pass that big exam next month so they can get into their desired college, or CEOs with hundreds of angry customers can't wait for your interview script, followed by your Otter.ai transcript autopsy, and feature roadmap. Yes, emotional connection is still important. But no, they're not going to appreciate you mirroring their responses back to them or telling them everything is okay. Interview some real customers, with real deadlines and objectives, not some company zombie on salaried 9-5 time. This is a book for indie hackers, right? (Sometimes, I wondered that out loud.)
My recommendation: read the Mom Test instead. It's a shorter, more surgical alternative to gauging customer response.
Deploy Empathy isn't completely useless: the premise of building trust and creating a safe environment to extract truth is important, and to that end, scripts can work in basic scenarios in the absence of tension. However, the need to go off-script and improvise requires a more in-depth treatment with less fluff and more detail.
My main issues with the text were
1.) Poor quality: several chapters end mid-sentence, without any kind of wrapup or takeaway. Pages 245 and 249 trail off into nothing. The cover curls up after a few reads.
2.) Lack of rigor and balance. Tone is too conversational. Some chapters drone on for pages and pages, while some are two pages long. I understand the need to speak to everybody, but people reading the book want a result.
3.) Wind and fluff: We don't want to read wasted words, like the 100th time she says, "It's okay if ___." We don't want to be told that everything "is okay." Tell us what to do! Be concise, surgical even. Tap your expertise. Droning on and on about "It's okay if you do this, okay if you do that, also okay if you feel that way...." is just wind. Time isn't infinite, so neither is patience.
4.) Lack of images. The book contains few images, even when things like the Pain-Frequency Matrix and shared-screen interview layout simply beg for visual aids.
5.) Poor recommendations. Some of the other books recommended feel like name drops rather than genuine continuation or deep dives of the topics at hand. For example, when discussing how to ask customers what they would pay, the chapter ends by recommending Stripe salaryman Patrick McKenzie's "Pricing Low-Touch SaaS", one of the most long-winded, impractical blog articles you could read as a founder looking for real truth and answers. Likewise, strategies from ex-FBI agent Chris Voss' "Never Split the Difference" have no place in a customer interview, because an FBI agent negotiating a confession out of a criminal doesn't have to continue the relationship and build a long-term rapport of mutual trust with someone going to jail. Your late-night DJ voice might coax them, but what you really need is a strong, lasting relationship, and strategies that prioritize confession in the moment are like fool's gold: they don't make them a lifetime customer. If anything, someone who feels swindled or duped will lose trust in you and your product.
Don't point us to these books; it feels like an affiliate cash grab. Just distill their most valuable lessons in your own words and put them in the text itself, as an afterword/footnote/appendix if you must!
6.) Lack of real-world stakes. Michele Hansen mentions Geocodio but I still don't know what the company does. Is this the business discussed in her podcast, that tells people what restaurants are open late at night? She never explicitly introduces her company's customer, even though it's the only realm where stakes matter to her. The sample interview transcript, the book's main selling point, doesn't even cover her product -- it's about a generic file upload job board website whose user she interviews for someone else. Just like it's hard to take a user's payment intent seriously without asking for a credit card number or payment, it's hard to take the advice and script of someone who has no skin in the game of the product whose user she's interviewing. The examples need to come from Geocodio users, not some 3rd party company. She has great experiences and insight from running Geocodio, but stunningly doesn't share the nitty-gritty details or the background story of her company to add credibility beyond surface-level numbers.
7.) Impractical and unrealistic. Customers are rarely this outspoken and well-behaved. They have goals to execute and don't want their comments and problems parroted back to them like a baby. The book should include stakeholders who are impatient like people in the real world. If they are giving you short answers, the solution isn't to reschedule the interview or ask for a better time/person; the solution is valuing their time, a sense of urgency, and asking more penetrating questions. Issues don't surface when you prompt them like a baby, agreeing with everything they say and deferring any feature requests like they don't matter. People wear masks; the goal for a user conversation that surfaces truth is to get the mask to fall, and the only way to do that is to get on their side -- as soon as possible, with minimal beating around the bush!
My main positive takeaway from the book is that much of the skill in surfacing customer feelings and truth is fuzzy: psychological, social, and emotional. It transcends technical troubleshooting. So the book's mention of building and maintaining user trust is spot on. The problem with reinforcing this message, though, is that the book treats people as if they have infinite time, energy, patience, and a universal desire to connect, share their thoughts, and answer your questions.
You can't wear a mask and use the same script for every user because not every user behaves that way; you must intuit user motivations both before and during the conversation, and often that involves cutting out the small talk, being authentic (instead of superficially nice in "your most harmless voice"), reducing your parroting, rolling up your sleeves and getting in the trenches with them.
Maybe if you were a B2B salesforce selling your subscription service to a big company -- like the universities often mentioned in this book -- where decisions involve several layers of management, time delays, and you're interviewing people on their company time multiple layers away from true stakeholders and people who have skin/money/success on the line, you can afford this level of indifference. Because everything "is okay."
But consumer product end users don't work that way. Teens with a 2-second attention span, kids fidgeting in school unable to resist the pull of their favorite TikTok reel or competitive video game, parents who need their child to pass that big exam next month so they can get into their desired college, or CEOs with hundreds of angry customers can't wait for your interview script, followed by your Otter.ai transcript autopsy, and feature roadmap. Yes, emotional connection is still important. But no, they're not going to appreciate you mirroring their responses back to them or telling them everything is okay. Interview some real customers, with real deadlines and objectives, not some company zombie on salaried 9-5 time. This is a book for indie hackers, right? (Sometimes, I wondered that out loud.)
My recommendation: read the Mom Test instead. It's a shorter, more surgical alternative to gauging customer response.
Deploy Empathy isn't completely useless: the premise of building trust and creating a safe environment to extract truth is important, and to that end, scripts can work in basic scenarios in the absence of tension. However, the need to go off-script and improvise requires a more in-depth treatment with less fluff and more detail.
August 26, 2021
If you're looking to level-up on deciding what to build, which feature to implement, or really understanding why a customer's happy (or unhappy), get this book.
In Deploy Empathy, Hansen's written the most accessible treatment on customer conversations, which are conceptually simple but can be challenging to execute well.
Unlike most books on the subject, Deploy Empathy focuses on how to actually make them happen. So where to find conversations, how to cold contact prospects and customers, how to get them to respond, pitfalls to watch out for, a thorough description of interviewing techniques and how to get to the details, and scripts for all purposes whether you're looking to validate your idea or prototype a new feature.
This book is for practitioners. All you have to do is give yourself a chance, and just follow the steps.
We're using the techniques right now to host idea validation conversations and we're already learning details we wouldn't have just by guessing or reading.
Highly recommended.
In Deploy Empathy, Hansen's written the most accessible treatment on customer conversations, which are conceptually simple but can be challenging to execute well.
Unlike most books on the subject, Deploy Empathy focuses on how to actually make them happen. So where to find conversations, how to cold contact prospects and customers, how to get them to respond, pitfalls to watch out for, a thorough description of interviewing techniques and how to get to the details, and scripts for all purposes whether you're looking to validate your idea or prototype a new feature.
This book is for practitioners. All you have to do is give yourself a chance, and just follow the steps.
We're using the techniques right now to host idea validation conversations and we're already learning details we wouldn't have just by guessing or reading.
Highly recommended.
December 4, 2021
I'm not a business owner so most of this book wasn't applicable to me BUT it still warrants 4 stars because the chapter that I did read about practical interviewing and empathy tricks?(Chapter VI) was phenomenal. The only reason I had to deduct one star is because Chris Voss' Never Split The Difference was heavily referenced and I almost feel like this book is too heavily inspired by his work to take the full credit. I would read Never Split the Difference before supplementing your understanding with this chapter if you want a deep dive.
January 7, 2022
This should be required reading for any entrepreneur.
Deploy Empathy gives you all the tools you need to talk to customers and potential customers. It sets you up for success in a wide array of situations you will find yourself in as a founder, from validating a new feature/product, to understanding why customers have been buying your product over your competitors’ products.
On top of all that, you learn to empathize better with people in your personal life as well, which was an unexpected benefit of reading this book.
Deploy Empathy gives you all the tools you need to talk to customers and potential customers. It sets you up for success in a wide array of situations you will find yourself in as a founder, from validating a new feature/product, to understanding why customers have been buying your product over your competitors’ products.
On top of all that, you learn to empathize better with people in your personal life as well, which was an unexpected benefit of reading this book.
September 27, 2021
As a copywriter and podcaster, I enjoyed reading Michele's very practical guide to interviewing customers. Even though I'm not the key target audience for this book, I learned many tips and tricks.
I even tested a few of the tricks on Michele herself during our podcast conversation.
You can find the link and more info here: https://coffeeandpens.com/michele-han...
I even tested a few of the tricks on Michele herself during our podcast conversation.
You can find the link and more info here: https://coffeeandpens.com/michele-han...
January 5, 2022
As a software developer who is just starting out with my business, Michele's book has helped me to understand the importance of customer relationships. You can tell that she poured all her knowledge into this book. With countless examples and actionable items, you will definitely become better in understanding your customers and improve your business.
Currently reading
June 12, 2022This is the book that gets the job done of overcoming fear of phoning! Michele makes you eager to talk to (and listen to) the people who pay the wages (i.e. customers). She showed me that I would enjoy doing so. I found that this little gem of a book informs, educates and entertains - all in a very empathetic way, of course! Buying it- and acting on it- was a wise investment for me.
January 9, 2023
Deploy empathy – a practical guide to interviewing customers, Michele Hansen takes us through all of the ways we could be interviewing customers and she gives us a framework and examples. This could be talking to customers about new features, if they would like to be a case study, customers that might not have upgraded from the free version, customers who may have cancelled, etc, etc. Whatever way you need to speak to customers Michele has a process for you. She also shares her years of experience and explains why you need to use certain words or certain question structures. That is where the empathy comes in, in all cases you need to be empathetic and can see if you run calls like she suggests you will get the best from them, however the “difficulty” in the call maybe.
March 5, 2025
I always wanted to write a book like this. But then I found Mitchell Hansen's "Deploy Empathy." It amazed me. I'm happy I didn't try to write such a book. Her book is way better than anything I could have done. It shows you how to really interview your customers. Still, I find it tough to suggest this book to others. Many think they know how to talk to people. But talking is different from understanding your customers' needs and desires. This book has psychology explanations that help you internalize its tips. Then it has tactical tips that are actionable.
August 22, 2024
Amazingly clear information I've already begun to use. When asking for interviews (especially without cash incentive, and especially on reddit) prepare for rejection, prepare for snark, prepare for people to tell you that what you're doing won't work. But just trudge forwards and know that they know nothing about you! :)
January 9, 2022
Nice concepts to go beyond...
Good to focus on customer's interviews. Listen, listen and listen them. Ask them rather than being anxious ti give them answers. The importance of distinguishing sales, customer support and customer research. Start to think in UX and its role.
Good to focus on customer's interviews. Listen, listen and listen them. Ask them rather than being anxious ti give them answers. The importance of distinguishing sales, customer support and customer research. Start to think in UX and its role.
May 5, 2025
The audiobook was a great intro to the topic that made it easy to dip my toe in. Now I need to get a physical copy so I can sit with the example scripts and the deeper concepts and give them the time they need to fully marinate.
January 5, 2022
Love the theme of the book. 2022 is the perfect time for this one.
May 26, 2023
A clear, highly-readable but deep dive into customer interviewing. I learned a lot.
November 14, 2023
Dense with insights
This book has loads and loads of smart insights despite being only short. Ideal for someone who has a product with some customers and wants to move up a level.
This book has loads and loads of smart insights despite being only short. Ideal for someone who has a product with some customers and wants to move up a level.
June 22, 2025
For a software developer wanting the answer to "but do they need it" this presents a new Audience and Tone you have likely never recognized.
January 3, 2022
This is a fantastic guide to help those involved in product development up their game. Speaking to customers is essential to build a deep understanding of their pain points, and Michele gives a practical, step-by-step guide to getting the answers you need. A very accessible book, perfect for people new to the trade as well as those trying to up their game.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews