Hey everyone,
In this post, I will describe probably the toughest task we have put to thus far. That task being that we had to interview 5 potential "customers" about an opportunity that we saw and ask them about what types of problems they had previously experienced and how they would like to see them resolved. As a student at UF, I know I can vouch for many when I say that that we are often over-charged for textbooks (some of which we will only open twice all semester), wait in tremendously long lines for these books, or buy the wrong books due to miscommunications with teachers and inadequate stocking at the UF Bookstore. In order to learn more about what other students thought of this problem, I went around campus asking different students about their own experiences.
For each student, I mainly asked them just two simple questions to get them talking. The first dealt with the types of experiences that they had already dealt with, and second question was about some of the solutions that they believed could make the most impact around campus.
As it turned out, everyone that I talked to experienced at least some level of difficulty or discontent with the way things are structured here at UF and would have liked to see a change. These problems went from simply buying the wrong book because it was not clearly distinguished on the shelfs, to another person that claimed he had over $2,000 of textbooks on his desk (most of which were barely used). To be blunt, this is a rather large issue at UF and I feel it could be solved simply.
I proposed to these "customers" a plan that would be a book recycling program here at UF, where students could buy and sell their books through a separate website dedicated to promoting fair prices and eliminating hassle. Most of them stated that they would enjoy seeing something of that sort because the re-sale value of many books is not that high in the eyes of the school. The links to the videos are all posted below. Take a look and see what they said, I guarantee you will be intrigued!
https://youtu.be/2ioBBMyOpbU <- Customer Interview #1
https://youtu.be/YD3WXqZlnVk <- Customer Interview #2
https://youtu.be/hK1cQ4Mhr_U <- Customer Interview #3-4
https://youtu.be/Bv90hFpTz-M <- Customer Interview #5
Although it was pretty nerve-racking and strange interviewing these customers, I found it very helpful and insightful to see that many students shared my same grievances. This exercise was difficult, yet extremely helpful at the same time. It'll be interesting to see what interviews 6-10 have in store for me!
Hello-
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the links to your videos are not working so, I was unable to watch your interviews but, it sounds like you had some unique responses. I really like the opportunity you came up with since many of us struggle from the same issue. It was a great opportunity to chose since everyone could relate so well. It also probably made the interview much easier to conduct. I found it was quite strange interviewing them but, by the 3rd one I was pretty warmed up. I also thought they felt a little bit more uncomfortable when they were being recorded. I look forward to seeing your future interviews, well done!
Check out mine:http://basmacirachel.blogspot.com/2016/01/customer-interviews-no-1.html
DeleteI also had trouble watching your videos. If you can get that fixed than I will come back and watch them and give you more feedback. For now, I can just talk about what you asked your customers. I think those were great questions and I would have certainly asked the same. I found interviewing to be very weird and a little bit awkward, but I am sure i will get better at it the more times we do it! Best of luck this semester.
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