Commercial Due Diligence: Customer Truth Before You Invest
Management tells you what they want you to hear. Customers tell you what's happening. Interview the target's customers and comparable buyers in days, before you sign the deal.
From individual interviews to a clearer picture.
Top theme: lock-in, not loyalty. "We'd leave tomorrow if migrating our data wasn't a six-month project."
Trusted by teams at
An AI commercial due diligence platform is software that runs independent customer interviews during a deal — outside the management-provided reference list — so deal teams hear what customers say when nobody from the target is in the room. User Intuition is commercial due diligence software powered by AI-moderated interviews, running confidential conversations with the target's customers, partners, and churned accounts on a deal-timeline cadence. User Intuition runs these conversations outside the management-provided reference list, so the highest-impact findings come from what customers say with no one from the target in the room. User Intuition probes 5-7 levels deep into satisfaction, switching risk, competitive alternatives, and willingness to renew, returning evidence the IC weighs. A User Intuition diligence study starts at $150, returns IC-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, and competitive-moat evidence for PE deal teams, M&A diligence, and growth-equity investors.
What is commercial due diligence with User Intuition?
Commercial due diligence with User Intuition runs confidential 20–30 minute AI-moderated interviews with a target's customers, churned accounts and comparable market buyers, laddering 5–7 levels into satisfaction, switching risk and willingness to renew. With no cap on parallel conversations and no calls to schedule, 50–200 customer interviews land in days, inside the exclusivity window.
Who is commercial due diligence with User Intuition for?
Research agencies and consultancies running customer diligence for private equity and growth-equity deal teams, and in-house deal and corporate development teams, from pre-LOI screening to post-close monitoring.
How does AI-moderated commercial due diligence work?
The target's customers come from client-authorized lists such as the data-room customer list, and comparable market buyers from our 4M+ vetted panel. The AI moderator interviews each one in voice, video or chat, and every finding links back to the recording.
What do you get from a commercial due diligence study?
Retention-risk segmentation, an independent NPS with the reasons behind it, growth-thesis and competitive-moat evidence, an editable IC-ready presentation, and every transcript and recording.
Why does commercial due diligence miss what customers really think?
The data room shows what the target wants you to see. Here's what diligence researchers tell us, and how User Intuition closes each gap.
- Sound familiar?
Every reference call was glowing. Of course it was. Management picked them.
Independent customer interviews, outside the reference list
Interview customers from client-authorized lists and comparable buyers from a 4M+ vetted panel, so you hear the full base instead of the happiest 5% the target hand-selects.
- Sound familiar?
The target reports a 45 NPS. I can't tell whether promoters are loyal or just locked in.
An independent NPS with the why behind it
The moderator ladders 5–7 levels into satisfaction and switching costs, so the IC sees an independent score and the reasoning the target's number leaves out.
- Sound familiar?
The customer-call workstream needs eight weeks. Exclusivity ends in three.
Diligence interviews inside the exclusivity window
Customers take the interview when it suits them, every conversation runs in parallel, and nobody chases calendars, so the evidence is in hand before the next IC meeting.
- Sound familiar?
Revenue concentration is in the data room. Which accounts hang on one champion isn't.
Relationship concentration risk, mapped
Interviews show which key accounts depend on a single champion and what happens to that revenue if the champion leaves.
- Sound familiar?
The model assumes cross-sell. Nobody has asked a customer whether they'd buy more.
Growth-thesis stress tests with demand evidence
Test whether customers would expand usage, buy adjacent products or pay more, and how they rate the competitive alternatives, so the thesis rests on what buyers say.
- Sound familiar?
We need customer truth without tipping off the target's customers or anyone else in the process.
Confidential commercial diligence by design
The target's identity stays undisclosed unless you choose otherwise, stimulus stays confidential, each client gets an isolated workspace, and data never trains AI models.
From LOI to customer evidence before the IC meeting
Design The Study
Define your diligence questions — retention risk, growth thesis, competitive moat, NPS — and provide the customer list or target segment. Bring your own guide, or our AI builds the interview guide, screener, and sample plan around your investment thesis.
AI Conducts the Conversations
Each customer completes a 20–30 minute AI-moderated voice interview exploring satisfaction, switching intent, competitive alternatives, and expansion willingness. The AI probes deeper on risk signals — not just satisfaction scores.
Get Evidence-Backed Results
Receive a structured diligence report with retention risk scores, independent NPS, growth thesis evidence, competitive positioning data, and customer verbatims — formatted for IC memos and investment committee presentations.
Track Value Creation
Re-run the same study post-acquisition to measure whether integration decisions improve or erode customer satisfaction. Build a longitudinal view of the customer base you acquired.
Real-world applications
for Commercial Due Diligence
Retention Risk Assessment
Interview the customer base to identify accounts at risk of churning, reasons for declining satisfaction, and the gap between reported and actual retention health.
Growth Thesis Validation
Test whether customers would buy more, pay more, or expand usage. Validate cross-sell and upsell assumptions with demand evidence from real customers.
Competitive Positioning Assessment
Understand how the target's customers perceive them versus alternatives. Identify if the competitive moat is real or if customers are actively evaluating competitors.
Champion & Relationship Mapping
Identify which customer relationships depend on specific individuals. Surface concentration risk that doesn't appear in financial data.
Independent NPS & Satisfaction
Generate an independent, unfiltered customer satisfaction score that the target didn't curate. Compare against their reported metrics to calibrate trust.
Post-Acquisition Baseline
Establish a customer sentiment baseline before close. Use it to measure the impact of integration decisions and track whether the value creation plan is working.
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 →
Why independent customer interviews beat reference calls and consultant panels
| Dimension | User Intuition | Management Reference Calls | Consultant Panels (GLG / AlphaSights) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Objectivity | Fully independent — target doesn't select participants; random or stratified sampling | Management curates which customers you speak to; inherent selection bias | Experts selected for domain knowledge, not customer relationship; indirect signal |
| Depth | 5–7 levels of structured laddering into satisfaction, switching risk, and competitive alternatives | 15–30 min unstructured calls; depth depends entirely on the caller's skill | 60-min expert calls; deep on market context but indirect on customer sentiment |
| Speed | In parallel — results before your next IC meeting | 1–2 weeks to schedule and complete 5–10 calls | 3–5 days per expert; 2–4 weeks for a full panel |
| Cost | From $150 for 5 interviews; a 100-interview study from the customer list is $3,000 | Free but low sample; opportunity cost of deal team time is high | Per-expert-hour fees that add up fast across a 10-expert panel |
| Scale | 50–200 customer interviews — enough conversations to compare segments and count how often a theme appears | 5–10 hand-picked references; not representative of the full base | 5–15 experts; market perspective, not direct customer evidence |
| Confidentiality | AI-moderated — no human interviewer to identify; participants speak more candidly | Customers know they're talking to the acquirer; social desirability bias | Experts bound by NDAs but may have competing advisory relationships |
| Evidence Trail | Full transcripts, sentiment scoring, and verbatim evidence trails for IC memos | Handwritten notes from deal team; no standardized evidence format | Expert call notes; typically summarized, not verbatim |
| Reusability Post-Close | Searchable intelligence hub — re-run identical studies during integration to track changes | One-time calls; no longitudinal capability | One-time engagements; must re-engage for post-close monitoring |
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
"User Intuition gave us something we'd never had before — the ability to have hundreds of deep conversations with our consumers in days, not months, and actually use those insights to make decisions in real time. That's not incremental improvement. That's a fundamentally different way of building brands."
Eric O., Chief Commercial Officer, Turning Point Brands "I didn't want another firehose of feedback, I wanted a handful of things I could actually trust and act on, with the quotes and the counts right there. We get that without me turning every follow-up into a week of CS phone tag."
Common questions
Don't bid on a story.
Bid on customer truth.
Get independent customer evidence that strengthens your IC memo, calibrates your bid, and shapes your value creation plan from day one.
See how PE and M&A teams use AI-moderated interviews to de-risk acquisitions. We'll walk through a real diligence case study.
Start with an editable research brief. Review your plan and discussion guide before inviting participants.
Your methodology · Your sample · No monthly fee on Starter
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