# Customer Research Screener Template

Canonical page: https://waitlist.crany.ai/marketing-templates/customer-interview-recruiting-screener

By Tangenix. Published 2026-10-23. Category: Customer research.

Qualify interview participants using recent task experience, decision responsibility and workflow context before scheduling.

## Task

Select relevant interview participants without screening for agreement with the founder.

## When to use

Use a short screener when many volunteers fit a broad audience label but only some recently experienced the task you need to understand. Define acceptance criteria before reviewing answers.

## Choose another approach when

You need a representative market survey, plan to collect unnecessary sensitive information, or will exclude people simply because they dislike your proposed solution.

## Inputs

- The recent behavior that makes a participant relevant.
- The time window that makes recall useful for this research.
- A plan for retaining only necessary screening information.

## Template

    Research focus: [task and audience]
    Include when: [observable recent behavior]
    Do not require: enthusiasm for our product or agreement with our hypothesis.
    1. When did you most recently [perform task]?
    2. What was your role in completing it?
    3. Which tool or workaround did you use?
    4. What happened immediately before you started?
    5. Are you comfortable discussing that experience in [duration]?
    Selection note: [behavior-based reason]
    If unsuitable: thank the person without collecting additional details.
    Retention plan: [who can see answers and when they are removed]

## Illustrative example

This is not a Crany customer result. Replace example details with verified facts.

    Research focus: client handoff for freelance website projects.
    Include: completed or attempted a client handoff during the past month.
    A volunteer says: “I handed over a restaurant site last Tuesday. I gathered the logins and walked the owner through updating the menu.”
    Decision: relevant end-user participant, because they can reconstruct a recent handoff.
    A different volunteer says: “I’m interested in learning web design someday.”
    Decision: not a fit for this round. Do not interpret that person’s enthusiasm as evidence about current handoff workflows.

## How to use

1. Write behavior-based acceptance criteria before distributing the form.
2. Keep the screener short enough to avoid becoming an unpaid research session itself.
3. Use responses to recruit varied relevant workflows, including people whose experiences may contradict your hypothesis.

## Checks

- The screener asks about something that actually happened.
- A respondent can decline without revealing personal details.
- Recruitment records distinguish researcher interpretation from participant statements.

## What to measure

Track the fraction of conversations that produce a detailed recent story. Review whether your screen excluded important alternative workflows; do not optimize solely for people who repeat the problem statement you expected.

## Research and sources

The sources emphasize task context and specific experiences. The selection criteria and screener are original research-planning tools, not a validated demographic sampling instrument.

- [Yale: User Interview Example Questions](https://usability.yale.edu/ux/discovery/get-to-know-your-user/user-interviews/user-interview-example-questions) — checked 2026-10-23. Interview structure, current tasks, past experience, alternative workflows and discovery paths.
- [Teresa Torres: Customer Interviews](https://www.producttalk.org/customer-interviews/) — checked 2026-10-23. Story-based interviews about goals, needs and context; separate discovery from selling.

Prepared with AI assistance. Sources support the stated principles; they do not endorse Crany or guarantee performance.

## About Crany

Crany is an AI marketing co-founder in development for software founders and vibe coders. It is designed to strategize, execute approved marketing and improve based on results. These free resources are usable independently of app access. The public waitlist is at https://waitlist.crany.ai/.