The reality seems to be that it rarely works out that way.

My experience has been that customers know exactly what they DON’T want when they see it. They can tell you exactly where the provided solution falls short of their expectation, but only after it has been provided. By then it is too late. They are dissatisfied with the solution, and you are in recovery mode. It doesn’t matter that it is precisely what they asked for, or even demanded as part of their contract.  

Customers seem to have a very hard time defining the necessary aspects of what they want to the level where the provided solution can easily satisfy them. There is an art to getting the customer to provide you the desired, and in many instances needed information to enable you to satisfy their needs. In many instances this is because the customer is not aware of, or does not know all of the variables associated with their specific business need.

So what do you do? You start asking questions.

We have all heard the old adage: “There are no dumb questions.” This is wrong. There are an incredible number of dumb questions. If you happen to ask enough of them you can and will destroy your credibility with the customer and put your deal at risk.

On the other hand, you cannot make the customer fact finding process appear to be an interrogation. Each customer feels they are, and in most cases truly are unique. Template and check list question approaches need to be used with caution as they have a tendency to remove the individual and personal relations ship that a customer requires. It also makes them feel as though they have been “sold” to and you are now just filling out the required forms.

I recently read a book, “The Sales Messenger”, by Mary Anne Davis, where she actually addresses the art of questioning a customer. The idea was not to immediately start “selling” or interrogating, but to engage them in more of a give and take proposition. Obviously this is something all sales people want, but is much easier said than done. She did get me thinking about some of her ideas and particularly the words and approaches she uses.

Ideas such as asking your customers for “opinions” and not “decisions” as a way of creating a discussion where the customer can be induced to provide more information they may not have even known they had. We are always in a hurry to get a customer to decide if they want “this” or “that”, when it is possible that ultimately neither will end up satisfying the customer.

Opinions draw pictures, where decisions select from provided options. Unless you have all the information that has enabled you to provide the correct solution / option to that specific customers needs, the idea of looking for customer “advice”, “help” and “experience” in creating solutions for that customer can only help improve the final outcome for everyone. Asking the customer for their “beliefs” on what is important and their “priorities” on what they expect help to draw the customer deeper into the desired solution, as well as draw out the deeper information necessary to create it.

The book also brought out the negative or “fighting” words that we all use. These words have a tendency to appear when the customer’s opinion or advice does not completely match our own. When this happens we usually use words like “but…” and “however…” These words will cause contention with someone you are trying to work with.

We need to debunk another old saying here: “The customer is always right.” That is not the case. If it were, every customer would be satisfied with every purchase they have ever made. Have you ever met anyone that could say they were happy with every purchase they ever made?

Healthy contention is a good thing. It will usually result in the creation of a stronger solution. The idea is not to conflict with your customers opinion. If you believe there are aspects of the needed solution that are not reflected in your customer’s opinion, do not directly challenge them. Instead, ask them a challenging question. Get them to think about your point without conflicting with their point.

As I said, customers are funny things. I thought that the ideas in the “The Sales Messenger” on how to get the information that they need and want to give you, but may not necessarily know they have, were good. The connotation of the words that you use and the approach that you use them in are key. The creation of healthy contention versus customer conflict helps to create a stronger overall solution.

It also might end up helping make your customer more satisfied with their decision to partner with you, and more satisfied with the solution you provide them.