Agent skill · marketing growth · borghei
customer-interview-script
Run high-signal customer discovery interviews using a scripted question hierarchy, behavior-over-opinion probes, and rapport techniques drawn from Portigal, Torres, Fitzpatrick (Mom Test), and Lewis Lin.
Why this skill is useful
Provides a structured approach to customer interviews with specific question banks and probing techniques that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
About 3k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-07-21. 462 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Customer Interview Script Expert Overview Running a customer interview is harder than it looks. The difference between a 60-minute conversation that produces three actionable insights and one that produces zero is almost entirely method: what you ask, when you ask it, and what you do not ask. This skill is the live-interview companion to discovery/interview-synthesis/ (post-interview analysis) and discovery/identify-assumptions/ (which produces the questions you go in to test). The script structure draws from four canonical sources: Steve Portigal's Interviewing Users (rapport, listening, "tell me about the last time"), Teresa Torres' Continuous Discovery Habits (story-based probing, weekly cadence), Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test (avoiding compliments, opinions, and futures), and Lewis Lin's behavioral interviewing patterns (concrete-recent-relevant). The goal is to leave each interview with at least one story, one contradiction, and one surprise. Core Capabilities 5-phase script -- opening/consent, context, story collection (the meat), probing/synthesis, closing -- timed for 45/60/90-minute slots. Story-based probing -- the story funnel and 5-Whys turn opinions into concrete-recent-relevant evidence. Mom Test discipline -- bad-question to good-question conversions that strip out compliments, fluff, and feature pitches. Question banks by type -- problem discovery, solution validation, journey mapping, churn/win-loss. Interview craft -- rapport rules, silence handling, pacing, pair-interviewing roles, recording/consent/storage. When to Use Problem discovery -- test whether a customer pain is real, who has it, and how acute it is. Solution validation -- get feedback on a wireframe/prototype grounded in past behavior, not hypotheticals. Journey research -- understand the end-to-end flow of how a customer does a job today (tools, workarounds, handoffs). Churn or win/loss -- understand why customers left, stayed, or chose a competitor. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills borghei/customer-interview-script