How to recruit business users for B2B user research
Where and how to find your users
Consumer-focused companies have it fairly easy — simply pay some people to spend some time with you! Business users are not so easy, and I have found you have to work a little harder to get their time.
Here’s some ideas to build up a list of users to draw upon.
– Peter Berrecloth (www.peterberrecloth.com)
Getting access to business users
You must be proactive, reach out and work with all areas of the business. It can be hard, but to become a user-centred designer requires turning away from your screen and make people your craft.
Start inside the company
- Product Owner
Your product owner should be your closest ally in recruiting users because it should be in their interests to do research and validate concepts. If they have influence in the company they can probably help you. They may also have contacts in the sector or customers that you can go meet. - Consultants
Some companies have consultants who will do work on behalf of the customer. They are the users inside your company. While they may have much more knowledge of the product than external users, they can be helpful for doing quick and dirty testing. - Training services
Some software companies still train their users face to face. Perhaps you can piggyback training sessions to see what new users struggle with, and if you’re lucky, pose some questions. Perhaps your company could offer a discount to users who opt-in to participate in research. - Sales / Account managers
Sales and account managers hold the closest relationship to clients–they understand their desires and demands, and can help build bridges for you, pose questions on your behalf and you could even try to attend customer meetings. - Technical support
Technical support have regular contact with users and often have the highest visibility to problems and pain points. Work with them to run surveys or engage with users inside your company’s support platforms and forums. They may also be running a beta program with users and you could try get hold of a few of them. - Technical architects
If your company has a technical architect or solutions architect, build a relationship with them and pair with them when they meet clients to better understand their customer and user needs from a technical standpoint–basically go to as many customer meetings a possible, if travel is an expense tell your manager its cheaper than hiring participants. - Research and development
R&D are often very proactive in market research. If you are lucky, they may have access to user groups and other professional networks. - The company boss
Co-opt a senior decision-maker to help you champion a UX project, they typically have influence and can call upon their contacts. They might be able to make things happen.
Where to find your users online
Asking questions to users online is still a valid form of research, here’s a few places I have found useful:
- Customer support platform
- Beta Testing programs
- User forum
- Professional networks
- Slack channels
- Linkedin groups
Research Techniques to use
- Contextual Enquiry — The most valuable form of user research. Try to persuade a customer that doing research with them onsite. Say it’s non-intrusive and that you’d like to find ways to improve the product just for them. Make them feel special and they might be happy to help.
- Phone interviews–A 20 minute phone interview is a great way to capture basic user needs, pain points and attitudes. Most customers would be happy to oblige as part of the requirements or process–you could even frame it as a form of customer support.
- Surveys – With permission of your company, trying sending a survey out to your users, or embed a feedback prompt in the product.
- Workshops — You might be able to organise a discovery workshop to capture user needs. This is more like a focus group but without the pitfalls of cross-talk and group think. Gamestorming is a fantastic book for workshop ideas.
Be patient, proactive and people oriented
Participant recruit is difficult, let alone for business users. But you can get there. Keep trying!
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For UX, User Research and Usability services in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh get in touch! www.peterberrecloth.com
