How to Build Better Rapport For Better Research Interviews

Published in

GV Library

8 min readNov 2, 2017

When coaching startups to conduct interviews and usability testing, I see one opportunity that is missed again and again: building a strong rapport with research participants by reading and responding to their body language. For me, learning to do this was like finding a magic potion that instantly improved the caliber of my research, and it made the whole process a lot more enjoyable, too.

Photo by Linnaea Mallette on PublicDomainPictures.net

When we walk into the room ready to do our research, we’re usually focused on how to efficiently gather the information we need and get out. And we may be nervous ourselves, especially when we’re doing research off-site in unfamiliar territory like a participant’s home or office. In either case, rapport isn’t top of mind for us — but it should be.

We have to remember that no matter where they happen, research interviews are a little weird for everyone. We invite strangers to have one-sided conversations with us that can often feel quite personal. The participants just want to do a good job and make us happy, but they’re worried about doing something wrong, or worse, looking stupid. Collecting quality information from them hinges on our ability to put them at ease and quickly earn their trust. If we don’t, they’ll remain nervous, suspicious and hesitant to share their personal stories — and we’ll never get the information we’re after.

How do we solve this problem right away? While I’ve seen a lot of literature about things like micro expressions, mirroring breathing, and transactional analysis, it’s too much for me to remember during an interview. Instead, I try to focus on just a few simple concepts.

1. Be a good host: Think of each research meeting as though it were a dinner party, and you are the host.

Before I walk into any research interview, I pause, take a deep breath and imagine the ideal host at a dinner party. They’re welcoming, attentive and encouraging. They run the show in a way that puts everyone at ease. They show interest and concern for their guests. This is the role that I aim to play for the length of the interview.

The nuances can vary — by the person across the table from you, by the project involved or even by culture — but thinking about the whole process as a dinner party reframes what we demand of ourselves, and it sets the stage properly for how we treat our research “guests.”

The “Gracious Host” rule applies equally well when you, the researcher, are the guest. A gracious guest arrives on time (the fashionably late rule does not apply here!) and is flexible, willing, appreciative and courteous. I consider myself the guest whenever I’m not on my home turf, but the whole guest/host relationship can manifest itself in some interesting ways.

Testing the Nest Protect smoke and CO alarm required setting it off repeatedly throughout the day with a squirt of canned smoke. But doing that at my office would have triggered the fire alarms in the whole building. So I convinced a kind co-worker to let me use his home for our research sessions.

That meant that I was both the host and the guest, a pretty interesting situation. Fortunately, I figured out that I could play it to my advantage. With each of my research participants, I pointed out how weird it was for both of us to to be in a stranger’s house, and I think the shared experience aided our relationship. I love looking for those types of commonalities. They help build trust quickly.

The goal here is to stop thinking about the research interview as a business meeting or a scientific experiment and instead think of yourself as the role of a host (or guest!) hoping to put the other person at ease so that they’re able to really open up to you.

2. Figure out the status: Quickly identify someone’s status and set your own to complement theirs

Status refers to the pecking order within a group. It’s the informal social hierarchy amongst any two (or more) people — who is dominant (high status) and who is subordinate (low status) — which is identifiable through things like body language, eye contact and tone of voice.

As social animals, we’re highly sensitive to behaviors that indicate social status and hierarchy. We constantly read and react to each other’s status cues automatically and unconsciously. During an interview, if I act too high or low status relative to the person I’m interviewing (whether it’s a CEO or a student), I’ll have trouble connecting with them. But learning to read basic status cues helped me identify and correct those discrepancies.

A high-status person tends to take up more space, behave confidently (and sometimes intrusively) and is generally less accommodating of other people. A low-status person might look nervous or try to defer to others. There are a number of concrete, easy-to-memorize status indicators that I’ve listed below.

Examples of High Status Behaviors

Take up space by spreading feet, putting hands on hips or behind head
Stand tall, still, relaxed, and in control
Invade others’ space or touch them without asking or apologizing
Interrupt
Direct, intense eye contact
Gaze down at other people
Look stern, unfriendly
Speak with steady voice

Examples of Low Status Behaviors

Shrink by slouching, and pulling feet, arms and legs in close
Fidget
Touch face or hair
Fig leaf positions: Hold hands or object as if protecting crotch. Stand behind chair
Smile and nod
Avert eyes
Speak tentatively. Asks for permission
Defer to other people’s wishes and physical space
Gaze up at other people

I use these indicators to judge how the other person is feeling, and then I have to respond accordingly using the Seesaw Principle.

3. Remember the Seesaw Principle: Status isn’t fixed. You can lower someone’s status by raising your own and vice versa.

If I raise my status, it lowers theirs (“I’m in charge here, so why aren’t you following my instructions?”). Or I can boost others by lowering my own (“Thank you so much. I couldn’t have done this without you!”). It’s like a seesaw where my status can go up and down when I want it to — and often when I don’t!

In an interview, the researcher often starts out higher status because we’re in charge and we know what’s going on. We’re also usually on our turf. So, when I notice that a participant is nervous I try to make them comfortable, boosting their status by lowering my own to a level slightly below theirs. Misquoting Michelle Obama a little bit (I hope she won’t mind), “when they go low, we go lower!” For example, I might literally go lower by lowering my desk chair so I look up to them, smile and nod more and shrink in a bit. I can also instantly make myself sound more tentative by starting my questions with “umm…” or “err…”

What happens if you get this wrong? I once learned this lesson the hard way in the conference room of a hedge fund in New York. I was interviewing high-powered analysts on behalf of a company that I’d assumed had laid the groundwork so that everyone involved was eager to help out. There I was, interviewing the executive across the table from me, when she turned to me and asked, “So, why exactly are we meeting?” in a tone that left no doubt what she really meant was, “Why are you wasting my time?”

Bam! The seesaw dropped out from under me. I had come in playing a pretty high status role to match hers because I wanted her to perceive me as credible, and because I thought she already understood and valued what we were doing. Instead, I was left scrambling, offering her an apology, instantly switching to very low status and getting straight to the point to try and save the whole meeting.

This was a rookie mistake, and it’s a good lesson for everyone. I hadn’t judged my audience correctly and had assumed a status that didn’t fit the situation. It was correctable — this stuff almost always is — but it taught me an important lesson about knowing the audience before you go into the meeting.

4. Focus on the other person as much as the information you need to gather

As researchers, we don’t have to wear a white lab coat to make our participants feel like lab mice performing tricks for us. It’s also easy to forget, after the tenth or even hundredth interview you’ve done, how intimidating the whole process can be for the other person.

When you sense an interviewee’s discomfort, or just feel like you’re not connecting well with that person, check your body language and theirs for clues. What status are you each playing? Did something change? If it did, adjust your own status gradually — too quick a change can seem unnatural and undermine rapport further. And if your adjustments and reassurances don’t work, check in with your interviewee with casual questions, like, “You seem nervous/distracted/uncomfortable. Is everything okay?”

Interviews exist in a strange time box. We’ve just met this person, yet we’re asking them to be very open with us right off the bat. And then we both walk away, likely to never speak again even after they’ve shared a lot of personal information with us. That’s okay, but I always try to remember that I may be the only person they ever meet representing my company. So my goal is that we always both walk away feeling a little better for having had the experience.

5. Beware external factors that affect rapport

Clothing: How should I dress to fit in? Think about your audience (truckers, CEOs, physicians) and try to dress like they might.
Cameras: Cameras and other gear can make participants nervous, so keep them small and as out of the way as possible. And don’t forget that one-way mirrors can make it seem like you’re just one good cop/bad cop away from an interrogation room.
Sensitive Topics: It often takes extra time to build enough trust to really delve into personal, embarrassing or sensitive topics.
Other People Present: Who else is there, from co-workers to bosses to friends and family of the participant, can affect their status and make the participant nervous or more guarded.
Brand Halo and Bias: How will research participants react when you tell them who you work for? To some, your brand may give you credibility, while others might find it intimidating, or worse, they may dislike it. Try to be aware of these perceptions beforehand so you know what kind of bias you may encounter.