Private equity due diligence: hear from the target's customers
Go past management-picked references: interview the target's customers from client-authorized lists and comparable buyers from our 4M+ vetted panel before LOI.
Walk me through the last time you made this choice. What tipped it?
The deciding reason surfaced four follow-ups deep, not in the first answer.
Trusted by teams at
Private equity due diligence is the practice of deal teams pressure-testing investment theses with customer evidence, market analysis, and operational diligence before LOI — most teams rely on 3-5 management-provided reference calls, which never surface real customer truth. User Intuition is private equity due diligence software powered by AI-moderated interviews, running 50+ customer conversations during a deal: the target's own customers from client-authorized customer lists, plus comparable market buyers from a 4M+ vetted panel. Across 960 AI-moderated customer due diligence interviews for private equity deal teams, User Intuition found that management-provided reference calls masked the real churn risk, competitive vulnerability, and customer concentration fragility that predict post-close value creation challenges. A User Intuition PE diligence study starts at $150, returns thesis-ready evidence as participants respond, and is backed by 4.9/5 on G2 and 5/5 on Capterra. The output is practical: retention-risk segmentation, growth-thesis stress tests, competitive-moat evidence, and concentration-risk flags for PE deal teams, growth-equity investors, and post-close value creation teams.
What is private equity due diligence with User Intuition?
Private equity due diligence with User Intuition is AI-moderated customer validation built for deal timelines. Interview the target's customers from client-authorized lists and comparable buyers, prospects and competitor customers from a 4M+ vetted panel across 58 countries, in 20–30 minute interviews that ladder 5–7 levels deep. Comparable buyers from the panel return 200+ interviews in 24 hours while the target's customers are interviewed in parallel, delivering thesis validation, churn-risk evidence and 100-day plan input.
Who is private equity due diligence with User Intuition for?
Commercial due diligence consultancies and research agencies serving deal teams, plus in-house PE deal and operating teams validating a thesis before LOI.
How does AI-moderated customer due diligence work?
Set the guide around the thesis. The AI moderator interviews customers in voice, video or chat without revealing who commissioned the research, and every finding links back to the recording.
What do you get from a due diligence study?
Retention, switching-cost and churn drivers with verbatims, reads by segment, tenure and geography, an editable presentation, and every transcript and recording.
Why does customer evidence in private equity due diligence break on deal timelines?
The thesis hinges on whether customers will pay and stay, and the window is 4–8 weeks. Here's what deal teams tell us, and how User Intuition closes each gap.
- Sound familiar?
Management handed us five references. Of course they love the product.
Two routes past the reference list
Interview the target's customers from client-authorized lists, well beyond the hand-picked references, and benchmark them against comparable market buyers from our 4M+ vetted panel. Participants don't know who commissioned the research, so they speak freely about switching intent.
- Sound familiar?
Churn is accelerating in the financials, and nobody can tell us whether it's fixable.
Churn drivers sorted into fixable and structural
Interviews with 5–7 level laddering reach churned, at-risk and long-term customers and separate product gaps and pricing structure, fixable in the 100-day plan, from market shift and competitive displacement.
- Sound familiar?
Three enterprise logos are 35% of revenue. Are they locked in, or one price change from leaving?
Stickiness and concentration risk, tested
Interview 50+ customers across cohorts to learn whether switching costs are real or merely contractual, and which segments and flagship accounts are fragile before you own them.
- Sound familiar?
Customer diligence takes us four to eight weeks. The deal won't wait.
Comparable-buyer panel interviews in 24 hours
Launch in minutes and read 200+ comparable-buyer panel interviews in 24 hours, with the target's customers interviewed in parallel as they respond, priced per interview rather than per engagement, so the thesis is validated before LOI, whether your deal team or your diligence advisor runs the study.
- Sound familiar?
The CIM tells a clean story, and we have no way to stress-test it before we sign.
Thesis validation against independent customers
Pressure-test assumptions on retention, margin expansion and brand defensibility with the same moderator asking every participant the same way, so the 100-day plan starts on customer-backed conviction.
- Sound familiar?
It's our fourth deal in this sector, and the customer work starts from zero again.
Customer intelligence that compounds across deals
Every interview from every deal lands in your Intelligence Hub, so the next thesis in a sector starts from accumulated evidence and cost per insight falls as the portfolio grows.
From deal question to diligence-grade intelligence
Design The Study
Every study starts with a research plan. Define your question — thesis validation, churn investigation, customer concentration risk, or 100-day plan input — then bring your own guide, or our AI builds the discussion guide, screener, and timeline tailored to PE deal timelines.
AI Conducts the Conversations
Each participant completes a 20–30 minute AI-moderated interview. Target customers come from client-authorized customer lists and comparable market buyers from the 4M+ vetted panel, both well beyond the management reference list. The AI moderator probes deeper on switching intent, competitive vulnerability, and loyalty drivers. Panel interviews complete in 24 hours, and the target's customers are interviewed in parallel as they respond.
Get Evidence-Backed Results
After interviews are complete, you receive a full research report with quantified findings, participant verbatims, and strategic recommendations — organized by customer segment, tenure cohort, and risk profile for direct integration into your investment memo.
Create Compounding Intelligence
Every study feeds your searchable Intelligence Hub. Query past due diligence across portfolio companies and deal flow. Surface cross-portfolio patterns and re-mine interviews for new insights — so your diligence capability compounds with every deal.
How PE Deal Teams Use User Intuition
Thesis Validation Before LOI
Target 50 customers across cohorts (new, churned, at-risk, long-term). With interviews running in parallel as customers respond, test whether customers perceive switching costs as real, which segments feel lock-in, and whether churn drivers are fixable or structural.
Hidden Churn Drivers and Segment Risk
Interview churned, at-risk, and long-term customers. Laddered interviews uncover root causes: product gaps, pricing breakdown, or category disruption. Identify which segments are most vulnerable.
Commercial DD on Platform Acquisitions
Target customers from both companies to test consolidation willingness, feature priorities, and expansion opportunities. Interview non-customers to uncover product gaps a consolidation could fix.
Brand Perception and Loyalty Assessment
Run brand health studies among current customers, non-customers, and competitor customers. Test whether the brand is a true moat or a temporary advantage that will erode.
Customer Concentration Risk Assessment
Interview top 10–15 accounts on satisfaction, switching intent, and expansion plans. Interview 30–40 mid-market customers to understand loyalty at different revenue scales.
Exit Strategy Validation
Run a final study targeting customers on retention intent, expansion likelihood, and switching risk. Package as third-party validation for buyer due diligence, backed by the Intelligence Hub evidence gathered across the hold period.
Why researchers choose User Intuition
User Intuition is an AI-moderated interview platform that gives research teams and agencies the depth of a senior researcher at the scale of a survey, with vetted respondents, your own methodology and evidence you can trace to the verbatim. Quality is built in: a person vets every panelist by hand, every session is screened for fraud, and you pay only for interviews that pass.
Senior-researcher depth
The moderator ladders 5–7 levels deep by default, using Reynolds and Gutman's laddering method, so you hear the reasons behind the reasons.
Your methodology, run as written
Bring your discussion guide and frameworks. Required questions stay pinned in order, word for word if you need it, study rules keep the moderator inside your compliance lines, screeners and hard quotas fill every cell to plan, and you decide how far it probes.
Every finding traces to its source
Click any theme through to the verbatim, the transcript and the recording. Every claim in the deliverable traces to what a participant said.
Respondents you can stand behind
A 4M+ vetted panel across 58 countries: a person listens to every panelist's interviews before they're accepted, then every session is screened for AI-generated or coached answers and panelists are tracked across studies. Or bring your own: customer lists, your panel provider, or respondents straight from your survey.
Deliverables ready to present
Themes, verbatims and an editable presentation for every study, plus every transcript, recording and screener answer to export into your own tools. Put your own brand on them when you need to.
Survey scale, quality-only billing
200+ panel interviews in 24 hours, with no cap on parallel conversations. Each one is scored on length, depth and coverage, and you pay only for those that pass.
- Isolated workspaces
- Confidential stimulus
- Never used to train AI models
- GDPR & CCPA compliant
- SOC 2 Type II examination underway
- Security →
How Does User Intuition Compare to Management Reference Calls, Consultant Panels, and Survey Due Diligence for PE Research?
| Dimension | User Intuition | Management Reference Calls | Consultant Panels (GLG / AlphaSights) | Survey Due Diligence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Depth of Insight | 20–30 min conversations probing 5–7 levels into customer loyalty, switching risk, and competitive vulnerability | 15–30 min calls with pre-coached customers; surface-level praise with limited adversarial depth | 45–60 min expert calls; industry perspective but not direct customer evidence | 10–15 min surveys; stated satisfaction without motivation or switching intent depth |
| Time to Insights | 24 hours from panel study launch to full report, with the target's customers interviewed in parallel | 1–2 weeks to schedule and complete 3–5 calls; limited by management coordination | 1–3 weeks to source and schedule relevant experts | 2–4 weeks for survey design, fielding, and analysis |
| Cost per Study | From $150 (5 interviews at $30 each, using your own audience) | Free but biased; the real cost is bad decisions from unrepresentative data | $500–$1,500 per expert call; $10K–$30K for comprehensive expert program | $15K–$50K per survey wave depending on sample complexity |
| Independence & Objectivity | The target's customers from client-authorized lists, plus comparable market buyers from a 4M+ vetted panel. Blind AI moderation. | Management hand-picks references; selection bias skews toward favorable responses | Experts are independent but offer industry views, not direct customer sentiment | Independent recruitment possible but survey format limits depth of honest disclosure |
| Sample Size & Segment Coverage | 50+ interviews stratified by segment, tenure, and geography: enough conversations to compare segments and count how often a theme appears | 3–5 references; too few conversations to compare segments, with heavy selection bias | 5–10 experts; perspective-rich but not representative of customer base | 100+ respondents possible but shallow depth limits actionability of findings |
| Consumer Language | Full verbatim transcripts — usable directly in investment memos and IC presentations | Brief call notes; no systematic transcript or thematic analysis | Expert perspectives documented per call; not customer evidence | Quantitative data and brief open-text; limited language for narrative |
| Knowledge Retention | Searchable intelligence hub that compounds across every deal, portfolio company, and sector | Call notes scattered across team inboxes; no institutional memory | Expert transcripts filed per engagement; no cross-deal synthesis | Survey data per engagement; no longitudinal intelligence across deals |
| Portfolio Value Creation | Pre-close to exit — thesis validation, 100-day plan input, ongoing monitoring, and exit preparation on one platform | Pre-close only; no ongoing customer intelligence post-acquisition | Pre-close expert perspective; limited post-close monitoring capability | Can repeat surveys post-close but limited depth for value creation insights |
Hear the interviews. See the presentation.
Explore calls and a sample presentation from our 43-participant Walmart shopper study.
Grocery top-up, supercenter
“Basically, because we use those things all a lot We try to always have you know, certain things in the house at all times because we use them very frequently. So we don't like to run out of them.”
What was making you want those specific things right then? Beyond just being out? Was it about being able to make certain meals or something else?
Basically, because we use those things all a lot We try to always have you know, certain things in the house at all times because we use them very frequently. So we don't like to run out of them.
Phone replacement, unplanned and urgent
“It made me feel so safe so relieved, and it brightened my day.”
Sounds like you knew exactly what you want. A Google Pixel 6 Pro. What was it about that phone that made it the right choice for you, especially in that moment?
Yeah. Thank you. So the the the phone had a lot of features. I I heard friends were talking about this phone. So in terms of the camera setting, it can take pictures and refine them into good quality. It has its own internal scanner, like I don't need to download other apps to scan to do scans. And of course, it has high quality for recording, which has been helping me in my meetings. In the office. So it's really amazing, and I love festival the quality of the phone in terms of the camera, because the previous phone I had was a Samsung. And the quality was really frustrating. And it had it has a very good processor speed as well. It's very fast. It's very efficient, and I like it. I like it. I'm enjoying the features.
Sample presentation
Preview three slides, or download the full 15-slide presentation.
Bring your own sample
$30 per quality voice interview
Use our 4M+ vetted panel
$60 per quality voice interview
What researchers say
"The depth of insight rivals expensive user research, but the scale is completely different. We went from 12 win/loss interviews per quarter to 200+. Now we can segment by industry, deal size, and competitor."
Stephane N., Head of Insights and Analytics, Microsoft
Common questions
Validate your next deal with independent customer truth
Whether you're validating a thesis before LOI, investigating churn at a portfolio company, or preparing for exit, get customer truth fast: comparable buyers from the panel in 24 hours, the target's customers in parallel as they respond.
Start with one focused study this week. Design your research question and see how fast we deliver customer truth.
Discuss your deal pipeline, portfolio composition, and how the Intelligence Hub compounds across investments.
Walk through a real study — from interview to report. See exactly what the platform delivers before you commit.
No contract · Per-interview pricing · Panel results in 24 hours
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