Stakeholder Research · docu tools · Pin Placement Flow
Before we redesign,
we listen.
A structured interview guide for Sales, Customer Experience, and Support — surfacing the lived truth about how customers use, struggle with, and talk about Pin placement.
Why these three conversations
Three windows on the same product
Each team watches Pin placement from a different vantage point. Interviewing all three triangulates the picture — what customers want (Sales), what they do (CX), and what breaks for them (Support).
SALES
Hears the expectation. What prospects compare us against, which demo moments close deals, and which gaps cost us deals.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Hears the reality. What happens once the contract is signed — celebrated moments, workarounds, renewal risks.
SUPPORT
Hears the breakage. The actual tickets, the "how do I..." questions, the repeat issues that never quite get solved.
Stories over opinions
"Tell me about a time..." beats "Do you think...". Specific memories beat generalizations every time.
Frequency + impact
For every pattern, ask how often it happens and how much it hurts. Rare + painful ≠ common + mild.
Listen for the workaround
Workarounds are fossils of friction. When someone describes one, dig in — they reveal what the product should do.
Follow the platform
Always ask which device/OS. The audit shows Android is the weakest — confirm whether stakeholders have felt this too.
Interview guide · 01 of 03
Conversations with Sales
Sales sits at the boundary between market expectation and our product reality. They hear what prospects ask for during demos, what alternatives they mention, and what gaps turn into objections. Their stories reveal which parts of Pin placement are selling points and which are liabilities.
Demo behaviour & first impressions
Understand what prospects notice and react to when they first see Pin placement.Walk me through how you typically demo Pin placement. Which moments land — and which do you skip past?
- Which platform do you demo on most often? Why that one?
- Are there steps you avoid showing? What are they and why?
When prospects see Pin placement for the first time, what do they typically react to — positively or negatively?
- Any "wow" moments you can remember specifically?
- Any "wait, that's it?" moments?
- What questions do they ask right after the demo of this flow?
Which platform do prospects usually want to see the demo on — and have you ever had to switch platforms mid-call to avoid showing something?
- Have you ever avoided showing the Android experience specifically?
- When a prospect is an Android-first company, how does the conversation change?
Objections & competitor comparisons
Understand which Pin-related gaps cost deals and which competitors are used as yardsticks.Have you ever lost a deal — or come close to losing one — because of something specific in how Pins work?
- What was the exact gap or concern raised?
- Were they comparing us to a specific competitor?
- How did you handle it?
Which competitor features do prospects mention when discussing Pins or defect-tracking on plans? What do they specifically praise about those tools?
- PlanRadar, Dalux, Fieldwire, Autodesk — which come up most?
- What do prospects say those tools do better?
- Any features you wish we had when you're comparing?
When prospects ask "can we do X with Pins?" — what X comes up most often?
- Templates? Bulk actions? Integrations? Custom workflows?
- Any requests you hear weekly vs. once a year?
Persona & industry signal
Understand who uses Pins most intensively and how that shapes expectations.Which types of companies or roles get most excited about Pins during a demo? Which barely react?
- GC vs. subcontractor? Site manager vs. office-based PM?
- Any industry verticals where Pins are the make-or-break feature?
If you had a magic wand and could change one thing about how Pins work before your next demo, what would it be?
- Why that one specifically?
- Would it change how you pitch the product?
Interview guide · 02 of 03
Conversations with Customer Experience
CX lives in the space between "what customers bought" and "what customers actually do". They see onboarding moments, renewal conversations, and the long tail of adoption patterns. Their stories reveal which parts of Pin placement customers love, tolerate, and route around.
Onboarding & adoption
Understand where customers stumble when they first learn Pin placement — and what eventually clicks.When you onboard a new customer, what's the hardest part of teaching them to place Pins?
- Which step takes the most explaining?
- Any moments where customers say "I would never have found that"?
- Difference between iOS vs. Android customers?
Are there features in the Pin flow that you deliberately don't show during onboarding because they'll confuse more than help?
- What are they?
- When — if ever — do you eventually reveal them?
Think of a customer who really nailed Pins and made them core to their workflow. What did they do differently from average customers?
- How did they discover or learn the advanced behaviours?
- What setup did they have in place (categories, templates, groups)?
- Can that pattern be made more accessible to others?
Workarounds & workflow stories
Surface the fossils of friction — things customers do to work around gaps.What workarounds have you seen customers invent to get Pins to work the way they want?
- Naming conventions to compensate for missing grouping?
- Using categories as a workaround for templates?
- Exporting to Excel for anything?
- Using external tools alongside Pins?
When customers describe their Pin workflow, how often do they mention categories, templates, groups, or subscriptions? Which of these are live ideas in their heads vs. ignored?
- Any of these four that almost no customer uses?
- Any that everyone uses but in very different ways?
Have you seen customers use Pins differently than we designed them? Any surprising or creative uses?
- Pins used as bookmarks? As measurement markers? As social notes?
- Use cases you didn't expect to see?
Platform & context patterns
Validate the audit's platform findings against lived customer experience.Do customers use one platform for Pins or mix devices? Where does each platform shine — and where do complaints cluster?
- Is mobile the primary placement device? Is desktop the primary review device?
- Any patterns by role — site walker vs. office manager?
- Any complaints specific to Android?
Has Pin placement ever been mentioned in a renewal conversation — positively or negatively?
- Any customer who renewed partly because of Pins?
- Any who raised Pin friction as a concern at renewal?
- Churned customers — was Pins ever cited as a factor?
If you could tell the product team one thing about how customers really use Pins, what would it be?
- Anything that surprised you when you first saw customers using it?
- Anything that frustrates you about the current design?
Interview guide · 03 of 03
Conversations with Support
Support sees the product at its most broken. Every ticket is a moment when the design failed someone. The repeat questions, the screenshots with confused users highlighting toolbar areas, the "how do I..." tickets — these are the most concrete, unfiltered signals of friction we have.
The ticket pile
Quantify the most common Pin-related issues and where they cluster.What are the top three recurring tickets related to Pin placement?
- Which is most common? Which is most frustrating to resolve?
- Are they bugs, missing features, or confusion?
- Any that come in waves — tied to releases or project types?
Which platform generates the most Pin-related tickets relative to its user base?
- Any platform where tickets spike?
- Any platform that's surprisingly quiet — and is that because it's working, or because customers gave up?
- Android-specific ticket patterns?
Can you walk me through a recent Pin ticket you resolved — start to finish? What did the customer think was wrong, and what was actually going on?
- What was the first message they sent?
- How many back-and-forths to resolve?
- Was it a bug, misunderstanding, or missing feature?
Confusion patterns
Map the specific moments where users get stuck.Are there parts of the Pin flow where customers often ask "where is the button to..." or "how do I..."?
- Any action they repeatedly can't find?
- Grouping? Subscribing? Changing category? Creating a task?
- Anything about starting Pin creation on mobile?
Are there moments where customers think a feature is broken but it's actually working as designed?
- The Android tap-placement behaviour (centred vs. at tap)?
- Category dropdown that looks like a dropdown but acts like a modal?
- Attach button that turns into Submit?
- Any others?
What questions do you answer so often that you've built a canned response for them?
- Are any of them Pin-related?
- What's the top canned answer for Pins?
Bugs & edge cases
Capture the long tail of technical issues and unusual scenarios.Are there known bugs in Pin placement that customers hit regularly but haven't been prioritised for fixing?
- Data loss on sync? Missing attachments? Wrong categories?
- Any bugs specific to a platform or OS version?
- Anything you keep expecting to be fixed but isn't?
What's the weirdest or most frustrating Pin-related ticket you've ever dealt with?
- What made it so hard?
- Did it ever actually get resolved?
If we could fix one Pin-related ticket theme so it never came in again, which would save you the most time?
- Why that one specifically?
- How big a chunk of the Pin ticket volume is it?
Running the sessions
Practical guidance for the interviewer
Good interviews are a craft. These habits make the difference between collecting opinions and collecting evidence.
Do
- Start with warm-up. First 3 minutes: role, tenure, typical day. Builds rapport and calibrates context.
- Ask for stories. "Tell me about the last time..." beats hypotheticals. Concrete memory beats abstract opinion.
- Probe frequency. For every pattern: "How often does this happen? Once a week? Once a month?" Quantify.
- Name the platform. Always clarify — Web, iPad, iPhone, Android tablet, Android phone. Don't let "the app" stay ambiguous.
- Summarise back. "So what I'm hearing is..." — catches misunderstandings and invites correction.
- Record (with consent) and take structured notes. Transcribe key quotes verbatim — they're gold for synthesis.
- Leave 5 minutes for "anything we didn't cover that you think we should know?" — the best insights often come here.
Don't
- Lead the witness. "Don't you think Android placement is bad?" → "How do customers react to placement on Android?"
- Accept solutions at face value. "They want a button here" → probe underlying need, not the proposed fix.
- Defend the product. Even if you disagree, stay curious. Debate kills signal.
- Rush through silence. Three seconds of silence often produces the most honest answer. Wait.
- Mix roles. Don't interview a CSM and a Support agent together — their different vantage points will collapse into the loudest voice.
- Skip the "how often" question. Without frequency, every insight looks equally important. It isn't.
- Treat the interview as a focus group. This is 1:1 for a reason. Consensus isn't the goal.
After each session
Synthesis template
Fill this out within 24 hours of each interview — while the detail is fresh. The goal is 5–10 minutes per session, not a full report. You'll thank yourself during cross-interview synthesis later.