Recruiting participants without exhausting your support list
Support teams know your frustrated users — but they should not be your only recruiting channel for observation work.
Why support-only samples skew results
If every participant arrives from a recent complaint ticket, your notes will overweight recovery behaviour and underweight calm first-time use. That can still be valuable — just name the bias in the briefing.
Sources we rotate
- In-product invitations shown to a random slice of recent successful completers
- Time-boxed panels for specialised industries
- Client-provided staff who use the application as internal customers
We avoid mailing the entire customer list for every study. Fatigue shows up as curt answers and abandoned sessions.
Consent language
Keep consent short: what will be recorded, who will see notes, how long recordings are kept, and how to withdraw. Participants should not need a lawyer to understand the paragraph.