# AI Implementation Operator Interview Guide

Purpose: collect practical objections, rollout blockers, and measurable outcomes from operators running service-business workflows.

Use this with 3-5 interviews (30-45 minutes each). Keep questions open-ended and ask for specific examples.

## Interview setup

- Interview length: 30-45 minutes
- Role targets: operations lead, support manager, sales/CRM owner, content lead
- Recording: ask consent first
- Output: one completed synthesis row per interview plus shared themes

## Interview profile

- Interviewee name:
- Role and team:
- Business type:
- Team size:
- Tool stack (CRM/helpdesk/content/calendar):
- AI adoption stage (none / pilot / partial rollout / scaled):

## Core questions

1. Which workflow takes the most repetitive manual effort each week?
2. Where do handoffs fail most often (between systems or people)?
3. What errors or delays are most costly when they happen?
4. What AI use cases have you already tried (successful or failed)?
5. Which objections did your team raise before rollout?
6. What made people trust or distrust AI-generated output?
7. What approvals or governance checks were required before launch?
8. Which metrics changed after introducing AI (if any)?
9. Where did quality regress or customer risk increase?
10. What would you do differently in your next rollout?

## Follow-up probes

- "Can you walk me through a recent real example?"
- "What happened next?"
- "Who had to step in to fix it?"
- "How often does this happen in a normal week?"
- "What metric would prove this improved?"

## Scoring prompts (optional)

For each candidate workflow discussed, ask the operator to score:

- Volume (1-5):
- Error cost (1-5):
- Data availability (1-5):
- Change burden (1-5, lower is easier):
- Confidence to pilot in 30 days (1-5):

## Interview close

- Top 3 rollout risks they want mitigated first:
- Recommended first pilot:
- Required stakeholders for approval:
- What they want logged weekly during pilot:

## Immediate post-call notes

- Key quotes (verbatim):
- Evidence to verify:
- Contradictions with prior interviews:
- Candidate edits to playbook chapter copy: