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VercelKnown publishervercel-labs/marketing-team-eve-template/agent/subagents/product-marketer/skills/customer-research/SKILL.md

customer-research

Skill459 starsChanged 9 days agoMITView on GitHub

Use when you need to find out what customers actually think rather than assume it: what to ask in an interview, how to mine language from reviews and support conversations, and how to tell a real finding from a polite one.

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

4 rules. 0 are common, 4 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • 0

    Common

    Most of the 58 edited versions we read keep these.

  • 4

    Distinctive

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 0

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Distinctive:

    Ask about the last time, not in general.

    line 15
  2. Distinctive:

    Ask about behavior over opinion.

    line 16
  3. Distinctive:

    Follow the loss. The deal that didn't close, and who it went to, is the fastest route to the real competitive set.

    line 17
  4. Distinctive:

    Ask what surprised them. The use case customers found that the team didn't plan is frequently the actual positioning.

    line 19

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 58 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

Customer research

Positioning fails on bad inputs more often than bad reasoning. This skill is about getting inputs you can trust, from the user in front of you and from what customers have already written down in public.

Two sources, used differently. The user knows the deals, the losses, and the objections, so ask them. Customers write the language, so go read it.

Interviewing the user

You are talking to someone who knows the product far better than you. Your job is to extract specifics, not to demonstrate a framework.

  • Ask about the last time, not in general. "Who was the most recent customer to buy, and what made them" beats "who is your ideal customer", because the first has an answer and the second invites a persona.
  • Ask about behavior over opinion. What they did tells you more than what they think buyers want.
  • Follow the loss. The deal that didn't close, and who it went to, is the fastest route to the real competitive set.
  • Push once on an abstraction. "Faster" gets "faster than what, by how much, measured how". Once is enough; twice is an interrogation.
  • Ask what surprised them. The use case customers found that the team didn't plan is frequently the actual positioning.
  • Batch three questions at a time. Twelve questions get skimmed and the answers get thinner as they go.

references/questions.md has the question sets by purpose.

Reading what customers already wrote

Reviews, forum threads, and support conversations are the cheapest research available and the only place you'll find the words customers actually use. Read them for language rather than for sentiment.

What to pull out:

  • The verb they use for the job. "Chasing exports" is worth more than "data integration workflows".
  • What they compare the product to, unprompted. That's the real alternative.
  • The moment they decided. Reviews often name the trigger, and triggers make better campaign material than features.
  • What they complain about in positive reviews. That's the honest limitation, and it belongs in objection handling.
  • Which benefit they mention first. Their ordering is better evidence than yours.

Quote it verbatim, with a source. A paraphrase loses the exact phrasing, which was the point.

Telling a real finding from a polite one

Most research goes wrong here rather than in collection.

  • One customer saying something is an anecdote worth quoting, not a pattern. Two independent sources saying it unprompted is a pattern.
  • Compliments are noise. "This looks great" predicts nothing; "I stopped using the spreadsheet the same week" is a finding.
  • Anything hypothetical is unreliable. What someone says they would pay, or would use, is not evidence.
  • Beware the answer shaped by your question. If you named the benefit and they agreed, you learned nothing.
  • Separate what you heard from what it means. Record the quote, then your interpretation, so the next person can disagree with the second without losing the first.

What to hand back

Findings with their sources, sorted into what's confirmed, what's a single data point, and what's still an open question. Include the language list, since that's the part messaging will use directly. When the research contradicts the positioning that exists, say so plainly rather than reconciling it quietly, and say what would settle it.

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  • Other versions65 projects use a version of this.

    Word for word · 0

    None found.

    Edited · 0

    None found.

    Wrote their own version · 65

    1. coreyhaines31/marketingskills★ 58ksame name
    2. anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins★ 34ksame name
    3. Nexus-JPF/note-companion★ 870same name
    4. Cesarjoquin/Marketing-Skills★ 190same name
    5. hyperfx-ai/marketing-skills★ 107same name
    6. LOGIN-TB/claude-skills★ 80same name
    7. open-fox/agents★ 55same name
    8. Infinite-Labs-AI/infinite-skills★ 43same name
    9. rainday/smart-blog-skills★ 35same name
    10. SZcalligrapher/slash-skills-subscription★ 32same name

    55 more not listed

    How matches are found. Word for word: the exact same text. Edited: shares passages with this file (“99% same” means 99% of its five-word phrases also appear here; 10% or more counts). Their own version: similar meaning, or, weakest, the same name. We can’t tell which project had it first. Projects are counted among the 200 most-starred candidates, and mentions are links to the repository we found, up to 50 per site, so both counts are a floor.

  • Used alongsideProjects with it also use popups, free-tools and 9 more.

    Other files people use alongside this one.

    Files found in the same public projects as a version of this one, more often than they turn up anywhere else. Each project counts once, large collections count for less, and this file's own repository is left out.
    • CesarjoquinSkill

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    • CesarjoquinSkill

      free-tools

      When the user wants to plan, evaluate, or build a free tool for marketing purposes — lead generation, SEO value, or brand awareness. Also use when the user mentions "engineering as marketing," "free tool," "marketing tool," "calculator," "generator," "interactive tool," "lead gen tool," "build a tool for leads," "free resource," "ROI calculator," "grader tool," "audit tool," "should I build a free tool," or "tools for lead gen." Use this whenever someone wants to build something useful and give it away to attract leads or earn links. For downloadable content lead magnets (ebooks, checklists, templates), see lead-magnets.

      Also in 23 projects that use this

    • coreyhaines31Skill

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      Also in 18 projects that use this

    • ukunal91appSkill

      community-marketing

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      Also in 36 projects that use this

    • pixelswithblissSkill

      co-marketing

      When the user wants to find co-marketing partners, plan joint campaigns, or brainstorm partnership opportunities. Use when the user says 'co-marketing,' 'partner marketing,' 'joint campaign,' 'who should we partner with,' 'integration marketing,' 'cross-promotion,' 'collaborate with another company,' 'partnership ideas,' or 'co-brand.' For customer referral programs, see referral-program. For launch-specific partnerships, see launch-strategy.

      Also in 23 projects that use this

    • timruebenachSkill

      competitor-profiling

      When the user wants to research, profile, or analyze competitors from their URLs. Also use when the user mentions 'competitor profile,' 'competitor research,' 'competitor analysis,' 'profile this competitor,' 'analyze competitor,' 'competitive intelligence,' 'competitor deep dive,' 'who are my competitors,' 'competitor landscape,' 'competitor dossier,' 'competitive audit,' or 'research these competitors.' Input is a list of competitor URLs. Output is structured competitor profile markdown files. For creating comparison/alternative pages from profiles, see competitor-alternatives. For sales-specific battle cards, see sales-enablement.

      Also in 24 projects that use this

    • +5 more from Cesarjoquin
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