QUESTION TYPES
CLOSED-ENDED QUESTIONS
Closed-ended questions are questions designed to help get you a “yes”, “no”, or short word answer.
- Are you employed?
- Are you still hiring for this role?
- If I were to present you with a resume that closely matches your ideal candidate, would you secure an interview with them this week?
Closed-ended questions help you guide and control the conversation to keep your call time efficient.
OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS
Open-ended questions usually require a broad answer.
- What is important for you in a candidate?
- What benefits are important for you?
The benefits of asking open-ended questions is that it allows the person you are talking with to provide further details and to elaborate on details.
PROBING QUESTIONS
At times your customer doesn’t provide you with enough information to determine what the value of our product and service might be. While it is tempting to move past the Discovery step in the sales process, it is important that you conduct as best of a job of Discovery as possible to ensure you’re able to recommend the best solution for the customer. These two probing questions get your customer talking.
- Tell me more….
- Describe for me your ideal scenario
Asking the customer to describe what they are looking for and prompting them with either of these questions helps open up the conversation more, and engaging them in the sales process.
The Discovery process requires not only gaining insight to a customer’s needs, but it also requires that we continue building their trust and giving them that feeling that we are here for their needs, and not ours.
ANTICIPATING SERVICE NEEDS
Part of being a consultant is having the expertise to know and forecast what your customer may encounter that they haven’t thought of already. Your customer will evaluate your level of help you provided to them, and it will all tie back to Discovery. Have you ever complained of service in the past and thought, “Why didn’t they ask me if I needed this?”
Your customers will ask themselves:
- Did they get the minimum service they expected?
- Did they get something more that they wanted or hoped for?
- Did they get anything that they did not want or feared might happen?