6 Steps to Building a Customer Insights Program with Shoshana Kordova

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May 29, 2025

Shoshana Kordova, a 3x founding product marketer and former journalist, shares her expertise on building effective customer insights programs for B2B tech startups. She emphasizes that customer insights go beyond mere conversations and demonstrates how to make interviews a repeatable process for crafting powerful messaging. Discussion includes collaborating effectively across teams, the common pitfalls marketers face in gathering insights, and techniques to ensure valuable feedback influences product strategy. Practical strategies are laid out for marketers to succeed.

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ADVICE

Build a Collaborative Interview Pipeline

Build a customer interview pipeline collaborating with customer success to efficiently manage interview stages.
Use this pipeline to avoid starting from scratch with each interview and keep a steady flow of insights.

ADVICE

Keep Stakeholders Updated Via Slack

Use Slack to keep stakeholders updated after each interview with key takeaways and customer feedback.
Share both positive and negative feedback carefully to keep teams aligned and motivated.

ADVICE

Avoid Checklist Interviews

Avoid a checklist approach in interviews; listen actively and ask many follow-ups.
Ask "Can you tell me more?" or "Can you give an example?" to dig deeper for useful insights.

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#250 Customer Insights | Matt sits down with Shoshana Kordova, a 3x founding product marketer and former journalist who now helps B2B tech startups craft customer-infused messaging through her consultancy, Peel Product Marketing. Shoshana recently launched a customer insights playbook for the PMM Jetpack, equipping marketers with tools and templates to run more effective customer interviews.

Matt and Shoshana cover:

Why a customer insights program is more than “just talking to customers” and how to turn interviews into a repeatable system that drives messaging, positioning, and case studies
How to collaborate across teams (especially with CS and product) to get buy-in and avoid stepping on toes
The most common mistakes B2B marketers make with interviews and how to get the kind of insights you can actually use

Whether you're a product marketer, content strategist, or leading a GTM team, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways to build messaging that resonates.

Timestamps

(00:00) - – Intro
(02:13) - – Meet Shoshana: From Journalism to Product Marketing
(03:23) - – What Is “Customer-Infused Messaging”?
(05:08) - – Why Customer Insights Beat Surface-Level Deliverables
(07:08) - – How to Work with CS and Sales Without Stepping on Toes
(10:08) - – Navigating Competing Priorities Across Teams
(12:28) - – Selling the Value of Customer Interviews Internally
(16:28) - – The 6 Steps to Building a Customer Insights Program
(18:23) - – Step 1: Aligning Goals with Stakeholders
(20:03) - – Step 2: Building a Customer Interview Pipeline
(22:08) - – Step 3: Keeping Stakeholders in the Loop (Hint: Use Slack)
(27:34) - – Step 4: How to Run a Great Customer Interview
(33:04) - – Focus on Problems, Not Just the Product
(35:39) - – Uncovering Real ROI with Better Follow-Ups
(36:49) - – Step 5: Documenting What Actually Matters
(39:09) - – How to Organize Insights into a Shared Database
(41:59) - – Step 6: Putting Insights to Work (Case Studies, Messaging, ICPs)
(44:19) - – Should You Hire an External Interviewer?
(46:34) - – What’s a Realistic Interview Cadence?
(48:04) - – Other Places to Find Customer Insights (When Interviews Aren’t Possible)
(49:39) - – Final Tips: Mining G2 Reviews, Webinars, and Internal Teams
(50:53) - – Wrap-Up and Where to Find Shoshana

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