Interview types
The buyer, your own rep, and sellers who used to carry a competitor's product.
Three different people, three different things you learn. Run them together where you can — the value is largely in the comparison.
The buyer
The person who evaluated you and decided. What you learn:
- what actually decided it, after the interviewer has probed past the first answer
- who else was in the evaluation and how the shortlist formed
- which of your claims landed and which didn't survive scrutiny
- what your competitor said about you, and whether it stuck
- what would have changed the outcome
Interview won deals as well as lost ones. A won-deal interview tells you which part of your pitch did the work, which is the thing you most want to protect when you change your messaging.
Your own rep
The rep who carried the deal, interviewed separately. What you learn:
- what they believe lost it
- where they felt the deal turn
- what they were missing at the moment they needed it
On its own this is mildly useful. Put next to the buyer's account, it becomes the most valuable output of the program: where the two diverge is where your positioning, your enablement, or your qualification is breaking.
Common divergences and what they mean:
| Rep says | Buyer says | What it actually means |
|---|---|---|
| "We lost on price" | "We didn't believe the ROI case" | A value articulation problem, not a pricing problem |
| "They went with the incumbent" | "Your integration story was thinner" | A product-positioning gap that is fixable in a battlecard |
| "No budget this year" | "We bought the competitor in Q3" | A qualification failure — the rep was managed out politely |
| "Champion left" | "Your champion never had the budget" | A multi-threading failure |
Ex-competitor sellers
Sellers who used to carry a competitor's product. Same voice interview, same destinations. What you learn:
- how they were trained to position against you
- which objections they were told to expect from your customers
- where they were coached to say you were weak
- what made their deals slip
This is the inside view of your competitor's sales motion, and there's no other way to get it. Public competitor monitoring tells you what changed on a website; this tells you what their reps are told to say about you in a live deal.
The interview asks only about a person's own experience of selling and positioning. It does not ask anyone for confidential material from a former employer.
Written interviews
Some people would rather answer in writing than take a call. The agent handles that instead — the output lands in the same place and feeds the same battlecards and drills. A written response from the decision maker beats a voice interview with the wrong person.
Human takeover
If someone would rather speak to a person, your team can take over at any point. The interview continues in the same record.
Which to run when
| Situation | Run |
|---|---|
| Competitive loss over your threshold | Buyer + rep, and check whether an ex-competitor seller interview is available for that competitor |
| Non-competitive loss ("no decision") | Buyer + rep. This is where qualification failures hide |
| Big win | Buyer only, sampled. Protects what's working |
| Entering a new competitor's territory | Ex-competitor sellers, ahead of the deals |
| Churn | Buyer, plus the CSM if you have one |