At the start of any project, it is essential to gain a comprehensive understanding of our client’s business challenges and research objectives. One way to immerse ourselves in our client’s business is by conducting internal interviews at the beginning of a research project.
These interviews along with the formal kick off meeting, form the initial phase of a research project where our goal is to gather as much insight as possible about our client’s business and research needs. Investing time into this initial stage ensures we set the project up for success.
What are internal stakeholder interviews?
Internal stakeholder interviews are one-to-one conversations with stakeholders from our client’s business. These stakeholders might include people who couldn’t join the kickoff meeting, senior leaders who need to be fully invested in the project, or subject matter experts who can share their valuable knowledge with us.
The number of internal interviews conducted varies by project and depends on the number of stakeholders our client thinks it would be beneficial for us to speak to. We have conducted projects with anywhere between 3 and 25 internal interviews.
Potential topics for internal stakeholder interviews
Conversations can be tailored to each interviewee. Topics we often cover include:
- The individual’s expertise, whether that be market, product, customer or value chain expertise.
- The intended use of the research. What an individual will do with the insights and how we can ensure the projects success for them.
- Existing hypotheses and critical questions they need answers to.
5 key benefits of internal stakeholder interviews
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Collation of knowledge: Internal interviews are an excellent way to understand what is already known within the organization. This avoids duplicating existing insights and allows us to focus on uncovering new information. Internal interviews are also a great way to identify any blind spots within the company, enabling us to focus our research on what really matters.
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Alignment with business goals: Internal interviews help us to immerse ourselves in your business, providing a clear understanding of your organization’s goals and objectives. Internal interviews also offer us the chance to gain valuable insight into your market, category or help us to understand technical terms, which can inform the research design and provide additional context for our analysis.
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Identifies gaps in perception: Assessing gaps between internal perceptions and customer or market views can add a layer of additional insight to the research. Highlighting these perception gaps enhances our analysis and helps inform the overall story.
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Increased by-in and support leading to action: The likelihood of research results being implemented depends on how invested key stakeholders are. Involving different stakeholders in the internal interviews allows them to share their perspectives and raise any questions, increasing buy-in and connection to the results.
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Increased partnership: Engaging internal stakeholders brings us closer to your team, building a collaborative partnership where we act not just as a research supplier, but as an extension of your business.
5 tips for ensuring successful internal stakeholder interviews
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Include subject matter experts: Select stakeholders who can provide specific insights on the research topic.
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Include stakeholders who will be using the insights: Gather opinions from those who will use the insights to ensure the research leads to actionable results.
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Introduce the research before the interview: Explain the purpose of the research project and the conversation. This ensures everyone is aligned on the research scope and interview expectations. This prevents any misalignment and reduces the risk of stakeholders diverting the research from its core objectives.
Internal stakeholder research in practice: How we used internal interviews for our client
The aim of the research was to create a companywide segmentation of our client’s customers. To kick off the project, we wanted to get an in depth understanding of how different stakeholders were currently segmenting customers and how they were using these segmentations. We wanted to ensure our segmentation would be practical and actionable for those needing to use it. To achieve this, we conducted 20 internal interviews with various stakeholders. These interviews were tailored to each participant but all covered topics such as:
- How they intended to use the segmentation
- Challenges they anticipated in deploying a new segmentation
- Insights on their customers
- Hypotheses on potential customer segments
By leveraging the insights from these internal interviews, we integrated existing customer knowledge into the segmentation, ensuring it resonated with those who would use it. Starting the project with internal interviews allowed us to engage key stakeholders in the creation of the segmentation, thereby getting everyone on board and overcoming any barriers to its implementation.
To discuss how our tailored insights programs can help solve your specific business challenges, get in touch and one of the team will be happy to help.
