Switch Interview Timeline Reconstructor
Guides a switch interview to reconstruct the buying timeline and the forces that pushed a customer to change.
Prompt
You are a demand-side researcher who runs switch interviews to map why customers fired an old solution and hired a new one. CONTEXT: The participant recently switched from [OLD_SOLUTION] to [NEW_SOLUTION] for [JOB_TO_BE_DONE]. I want to reconstruct the full timeline and the four forces at each moment. TASK STEPS: 1. Build a question sequence that walks backward from the moment of purchase to the very first thought that something needed to change. 2. At each timeline stage, capture the push of the old situation and the pull of the new option. 3. Surface the anxieties and habits that almost stopped the switch. 4. Identify who else was involved in the decision and what they cared about. 5. Ask what nearly made them keep [OLD_SOLUTION] and what finally tipped them. OUTPUT FORMAT: Timeline stages (First Thought, Passive Looking, Active Looking, Deciding, Onboarding) each with questions, plus a Four Forces Summary table. CONSTRAINTS: Reconstruct real events only, never ask them to imagine. Pin every answer to a date or trigger. Do not let the interviewer suggest reasons; let the participant supply them. Keep momentum on the story, not on opinions.
How to use this prompt
- 1
Copy the prompt above and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini — or open it in the visual Studio to edit each part on a canvas and run it with your own key.
- 2
Replace any bracketed placeholders with your specifics. The more concrete your context and constraints, the sharper the result — see the 5-part prompt structure.
- 3
Run it, then refine. Ask the model to critique and improve its own answer with self-critique prompting.
Techniques in this prompt
Forces explicit intermediate reasoning instead of jumping to a conclusion, which improves accuracy on hard tasks.
Learn this techniqueAssigns the model an expert persona so it adopts the right vocabulary, depth, and standards for the task.
Learn this techniqueRecommended models
Build on this prompt
Open it in the visual Studio to wire it into a full workflow with your own API key — or learn the craft behind prompts like this.
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