How to Answer "What Do You Think of Our Product or Service?"
"What do you think of our product or service?" is one of the most differentiating questions in any interview. Most candidates either gush unconvincingly ("I think it's amazing!") or hedge so vaguely that they reveal nothing ("It seems like a solid product"). The candidates who land the role are the ones who come in with an informed, specific, and balanced perspective — one that demonstrates genuine engagement with the product and the commercial thinking behind it.
According to a 2023 LinkedIn Talent Trends report, product knowledge ranked in the top three factors UK and US hiring managers cited when assessing "genuine motivation" for a role. This question is asked most frequently in roles where your understanding of the product directly affects your performance: sales, customer success, product management, UX, marketing, and growth.
This guide will show you how to research the product thoroughly, structure a balanced critique that impresses rather than offends, and demonstrate the kind of commercial thinking that makes you look like an insider from day one.
Why Recruiters Ask This Question
This question is not just about the product — it is a proxy test for several high-value competencies.
Preparation and research standards: Any candidate who has not explored the product before an interview is signalling that they are not serious about the role. This is especially true for roles processed through ATS platforms like Greenhouse or Lever, where hiring managers often have access to structured interview scoring rubrics and rate "preparation" as a discrete criterion.
Critical thinking and commercial judgment: The ability to identify strengths and weaknesses in a product — and frame them constructively — is a core skill in product, sales, and consultancy roles. The recruiter is watching how you think, not just what you say.
Communication style: This question tests whether you can give feedback diplomatically. In UK workplace culture, where directness is valued but bluntness can be jarring, and in US corporate culture, where constructive feedback is expected to be solution-oriented, the framing of your answer matters as much as its content.
Genuine enthusiasm: A candidate who has genuinely used the product — downloaded the app, read through the features, signed up for a free trial — demonstrates a level of commitment that passive research cannot replicate.
Pro tip
If the product has a free trial, sign up for it before the interview. If it is a physical product, buy it or find it in store. If it is a professional service, request a demo from the sales team (honestly — just say you are doing research ahead of an interview). First-hand experience produces insights that no amount of website reading can match.
The Research Framework: How to Form a Genuine Opinion
The strongest answers come from structured, multi-source research. Here is how to approach it.
Step 1: Experience the Product Yourself
Do not rely solely on what the company says about their own product. Use it, test it, or study it as a customer would.
- SaaS or app products: Sign up for the free tier or trial. Go through the full onboarding flow. Note where it is frictionless and where it is confusing.
- Consumer products: Buy it, try it, or at minimum watch detailed review videos from independent sources.
- B2B services: Review case studies on the website, watch demo videos on YouTube, and look for analyst reports (Gartner, Forrester, or G2 Crowd reviews are excellent for enterprise software).
Step 2: Read Independent Reviews and Competitor Analysis
What do actual users say? Check: - G2 Crowd, Trustpilot, or App Store/Google Play reviews for SaaS and consumer tech - Industry analyst reports for enterprise products - Reddit communities and forums relevant to the product category - Competitor comparison pages — often searchers looking for "[company] alternatives" find brutally honest comparison content
Step 3: Understand the Market Context
Where does this product sit in its market? Who are the main competitors? What problem does it solve better than alternatives — and where does it fall short? This market context elevates your answer from "product review" to "commercial analysis."
Example
If you are interviewing at a project management software company, you should understand how it compares to Asana, Monday.com, and Jira. Saying "I use [product] personally for side projects and I've also tried Asana — I find [product]'s approach to dependency mapping more intuitive for cross-team projects, though I noticed the reporting feature is less developed than Asana's" demonstrates genuine, comparative product knowledge.
How to Structure a Balanced, Impressive Answer
The strongest formula for this question is: specific praise + evidence + constructive observation + connection to your contribution.
Specific praise: Name what you genuinely find impressive about the product. Not "it's really well designed" but "the onboarding flow is one of the smoothest I have seen — I went from sign-up to first meaningful action in under three minutes, which is very hard to achieve in this category."
Evidence: Ground your praise in a concrete observation. Users, reviews, your own experience, or competitive context.
Constructive observation: One thoughtful area for improvement, framed as an opportunity rather than a flaw. This shows you can give feedback without tearing things down.
Connection to your contribution: Link your observation to your skills. "I noticed X, and one of the things I am most excited about is the opportunity to apply my experience in Y to help address it."
Watch out
Never be purely critical, and never be purely complimentary. An answer that lists only positives sounds sycophantic and suggests either poor analytical thinking or a desire to say what the recruiter wants to hear. An answer that focuses heavily on problems risks seeming arrogant or negative. The balance is what demonstrates maturity and judgment.
Two Worked Examples for Real Roles
Example 1: Customer Success Manager at a London-Based HR Tech Startup
Natasha is interviewing for a Customer Success Manager role at a company that sells an employee engagement survey platform. She has spent two hours researching the product.
She answers: "I signed up for your free trial last week and went through the full setup process. I was genuinely impressed by how quickly I could customise a pulse survey and get it out to a hypothetical team — the drag-and-drop builder is intuitive, and the response rate dashboard is clean and immediately actionable. What struck me in your G2 reviews is that your NPS from customers in the 100-to-500 employee range is exceptionally high — you're consistently mentioned as 'the tool that actually gets used,' which suggests your onboarding and adoption support is doing something right. One area I noticed as an opportunity is the integration with HRIS systems — several reviews mentioned that connecting to BambooHR requires manual configuration. Given that HRIS integration is a common buying requirement in your market, I wonder whether a deeper native integration could remove a sales friction point. That is actually an area where I have experience, having worked with HR tech integrations in my current role."
Example 2: Sales Development Representative at a Cybersecurity SaaS in Chicago
Ben is interviewing for an SDR role at a cloud security company selling to enterprise IT teams.
He answers: "I watched your full product demo on YouTube and read through your Gartner Peer Insights reviews — you're running at 4.6 out of 5 with particularly strong scores on ease of deployment, which in the enterprise security space is a genuine differentiator because deployment friction is one of the most common reasons security tools go unused. Your competitive positioning against CrowdStrike and SentinelOne seems to be around that deployment speed and the per-seat pricing model, which makes sense for the mid-market enterprises you seem to target. One observation I had from reading the G2 reviews is that customers who stay beyond year two give higher satisfaction scores than early-stage customers — which suggests there might be an opportunity to improve the first-90-days experience to accelerate time-to-value. I am particularly interested in that angle because in my current role in tech sales, I've seen how the first impression of a product directly affects renewal conversations."
Adapting Your Answer by Sector
Technology products: Focus on user experience, performance, integration ecosystem, and scalability. Reference relevant competitors by name and explain your comparative assessment.
Consumer goods: Discuss quality, value proposition, and customer experience. If you are a genuine user of the product, say so — and explain why you chose it over alternatives.
Professional and financial services: Discuss client outcomes, service delivery quality, and market positioning. Reference any industry recognition, regulatory compliance, or client case studies that demonstrate credibility.
Healthcare and life sciences: Balance enthusiasm with sensitivity to the serious stakes involved. Reference patient or user outcomes, regulatory context, and how the product compares on clinical or safety dimensions.
Pro tip
If the company sells to businesses and you do not have direct user experience, use the following research substitute: find three recent reviews on G2 or Capterra, identify the most common praise and complaint, and build your answer around that synthesis. "From the customer reviews I read, the most consistent praise is X, and the most common improvement request is Y. My read on why Y comes up is..." This demonstrates analytical thinking even without first-hand use.
Related Articles to Prepare Your Full Interview
- What do you know about our company?
- Why do you want to join our company?
- Why do you think you are a good candidate for this position?
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