Customer Interviews No. 3

1) Describe your interviewing strategy. 

Strategy: 

Target college age students and understand if this opportunity can be successful. 

Questions:

• What is your year and major/college?

• Have you ever been tempted to not buy a recommended book and just use supplements like Smokin Notes due to price of textbooks? 

• How much do you spend on textbooks each semester? 

• Would you rather use e-texts or physical textbooks? 

• Would you be willing to participate in a give a book get a book program

2) Conduct the interviews. 

3) Reflect on what you learned. 

I will admit it felt very unnatural and almost infomercial like to film my interviews. During some interviews I ended up having to rerecord the interview due to laughter between myself and the interviewee. Although at the end of the five interviews I was excited to see a positive response to my give a book get a book program. I was scared many of the students were going to say no they do not use physical textbooks anymore and just prefer to use e-texts or supplements like Smokin Notes, but I was pleasantly surprised that a majority of the interviewees would rather use a physical textbook which would make my program a success. Students are spending thousands to get an education and all seem to have a similar interest in saving as much money as possible. The average student spends anywhere from $300 to $500 on textbooks and supplements each semester and with my program I hope to drastically change that number.  I also learned that I am going to be challenged by competition such as rental textbook companies and people not participating due to the need to have access codes still. Although I plan to make my program successful through organization and engaging advertisements.