1. Open question
Open-ended questions are topics chosen to guide others to speak freely. If you want to know more about customers' needs, you should ask more open-ended questions. The interrogative words that can reflect open questions are: what, where, tell, how, why and talk.
2. Closed questions
Closed-ended questions refer to those who choose a specific topic in order to guide the conversation and hope that the other party will answer limited questions. Closed questions are often reflected in interrogative words such as "can", "right", "isn't it", "will it" and "how long".
If you want to get some more specific data and information, you need to ask the customer closed questions, so that the customer can confirm whether you understand him or not. But in telemarketing, if you ask a lot of closed questions, it will cause a kind of pressure on customers, which is not conducive to your own information collection. Therefore, when you know the customer's needs in the early stage, ask more open-ended questions, so that customers can speak freely, and it is easier for you to get useful information and find new business opportunities.
Types of problems
When you communicate with customers, you need to ask them some questions, which can be divided into the following eight categories:
1. Judge the qualification of customers
According to your own sales target, ask some specific questions to the customer, and determine whether he is a customer who meets your target through the other party's answer. For example, you can ask this question: Some companies have adopted telemarketing. Do you have a telemarketer?
2. Customer's demand for systems or services
According to the customer's demand intention, use closed-ended questions to further clarify the customer's needs and obtain as much other information as possible. The question you ask can be: which is the most important for you, reliability, manageability and maintainability? Why?
Make a decision
Ask questions in a euphemistic tone to determine who is the client's decision maker. To make customers happy to answer your questions, ask them directly, "Are you in charge of this?" Obviously this is not a good way to ask questions. If you ask in another way, "Who else was involved in this decision besides you?" When customers feel that they are valued, things will naturally go relatively smoothly.
4. Budget
In order to successfully sell your products, you should know the customer's budget. If the customer's budget is low and you need to sell high-end products to him, the probability of success will be correspondingly low, and vice versa. There may be some difficulties here, because customers are generally reluctant to tell you what their budget is. We can start with other projects and gradually induce them to disclose some budget issues.
5. Competitors
The best time to ask about competitors' information is when customers mention competitors. Don't ask about competitors' information actively. Pay attention to the information of competitors mentioned by customers and analyze their advantages and disadvantages. If customers think that the shortcomings of competitors are their own advantages, it is very likely that they will attract customers by highlighting the shortcomings of competitors in the next conversation.
6. Time limit
Knowing the time limit of customer demand will help you to further formulate your own sales strategy. If the other person answers that you are not sure, it is likely that he has not really decided to cooperate with you. At this time, you should further guide him, such as hinting at the benefits of starting as early as possible and the adverse effects of delay, so that customers can make cooperation decisions as soon as possible.
7. Deal
That is, guide customers to make decisions and realize business. When appropriate, such as when the customer is satisfied or in a good mood, you can take the initiative to give the customer a hint, complete the signing procedures, and clinch a deal.
8. Provide your own information to customers.
Communicate the information that is beneficial to you to customers in an appropriate way, make customers feel that buying your products is a correct decision, improve customer satisfaction, and may also be of great help to your future sales work.
Questioning skills
The skills of asking questions are divided into the following four aspects:
1. prologue
The prelude is to tell the customer that answering your question is necessary, or at least harmless. If you want to ask sensitive questions that customers may not want to answer, using a prelude is expected to change customers' minds. For example, if you ask a customer a question about the project budget, most customers are unwilling to tell you. At this time, you can add such a prelude: "In order to recommend a most suitable scheme to you, I want to know the approximate investment level of this project?" Through the prelude, customers can be effectively reminded that I need to know the project budget, and customers will have some possibilities for positive answers.
Ask a rhetorical question
If the customer asks you a question and you don't know how to answer it, then you have two choices: ① seek truth from facts and don't pretend to understand; (2) Ask the customer in turn, and let the customer express his views on this issue. This is usually the answer he wants, and you just need to vote accordingly.
keep silence
If there is a long silence during the call, it will definitely cause a very embarrassing situation. But proper silence is also necessary. For example, after asking questions to customers, keeping silent for a short time can just provide customers with a necessary time to think.
4. Ask only one question at a time
Usually, you may need to ask several questions at the same time for the other person to answer, and he often remembers only one of them, or feels that it is impossible to talk. So it is the best choice to ask only one question at the same time.
Listening skills
Learning to listen is very necessary, and customers will not always repeat the same question. If you are absent-minded and don't listen, you are likely to miss some very important information, thus losing the chance to make a deal. Therefore, listening skills are very important. There are four good listening skills.
1. Confirm
In the process of the customer's speech, there may be some words you didn't hear clearly, and there may be some technical terms you don't understand, so it is especially necessary to confirm with the customer to further clarify what the customer said.
At the same time, when communicating with customers, we must pay attention to the use of our own language. Don't use too many terms, so as not to easily cause obstacles to customers' understanding.
clarify
If there is any ambiguity, communicate with the other party in time so as to fully understand the real thoughts of customers. There may be two or more understandings of what a customer says. If you are self-righteous and only understand according to your own likes and dislikes, it will inevitably lead to misunderstanding. So be sure to communicate with customers in time and clarify the facts.
3. Feedback
In the process of listening, we should actively and timely feedback to customers. You should constantly make him realize that you have been listening to him. If you only pay attention to your long speech and can't hear the response, it will inevitably cause psychological pressure on the customer, so he naturally doesn't want to continue to talk about the following content, just want to end the call as soon as possible.
record
Be sure to take notes when communicating by phone. Telephone communication time is limited, so it is difficult for you to remember all the main points of customer needs. The best way is to record the key points mentioned by customers at any time in time.
5. Judge the customer's personality
Listen to the customer's personality by calling. According to the four personality types mentioned above, give the current customers a general positioning. Then adapt to each other according to this positioning and deal with it according to the above method.
Self-check
Think back to your last communication with customers and answer the following questions.
Express sympathy
1. Ways of expressing sympathy
Empathy is to stand in the customer's position and consider the problem from the customer's point of view. It is important to express empathy. Expressing empathy can make the customer realize that you have been standing with him, effectively narrowing the distance between the two sides. There are several ways to express the same feeling:
◆ Agree that the customer's needs are correct.
◆ Declare that this requirement is as important as other requirements.
◆ Point out the consequences of not meeting this requirement.
◆ Show that you can understand the customer's current feelings.
2. Preventive measures
Don't be too eager to express empathy, facial expressions must match the voice in time. More importantly, we must express empathy from the customer's standpoint.
There are two points worth noting when expressing empathy:
◆ Don't be too eager to express, lest the other party think that you are trying to please him.