No matter why we pick up a phone – to close a sale, book a meeting, connect with a customer or resolve a service issue – being able to inspire a conversation holds tremendous value. It is through conversation that we can:
*hear opinions, thoughts and feelings;
*encourage participation;
*establish rapport and build relationship;
*stimulate discussion; and
*create equality.
Open-ended questions inspire conversation. Using the words who, what, when, where, how or why at the beginning of every question jumpstarts a conversation and allows us to learn more about our customer, our prospect, our provider.
However, for a reason I have yet to discover (and if you know where I can find out, please let me know) human beings have a natural inclination to ask close-ended questions, the ones that can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”. While close-ended questions are valuable in certain situations, when our aim is to build relationship and gather information, they are, well … useless.
For example:
“So, can we schedule a meeting to continue our discussion?” “No.”
“Are you able to finalize that order with me today?” “No.”
“May I speak to your supervisor?” “No.”
In each of these scenarios, the person asking the question doesn’t learn anything. Instead they create a conversational dead end.
But for many of us, creating open-ended questions during a conversation is not straightforward or simple. We know we want to ask them, but once the conversation is in full swing, we stay in our close-ended comfort zone.
Enter the power of “or”.
For example:
“So, can we schedule a meeting to continue our discussion, or ….”
“Are you able to finalize that order with me today, or … .”
“May I speak to your supervisor, or … .”
This works because we are all inclined to finish thoughts, to complete sentences. “Or” serves as an invitation to speak and the majority of the time, the invitation is accepted.
For example:
“A meeting doesn’t work for me this month, but let’s schedule a phone conference for early February.”
“I need a P.O. number to finalize the order and I should have that by tomorrow morning.”
“My supervisor is unavailable at the moment.”
While I do believe it is important to use a wide variety of open-ended questions (more on this in future posts), using the word “or” gives you the power to inspire conversation with minimal effort.
Could it be that we want to avoid the risk of an unexpected or unwelcomed or lengthy answer and therefore we do not ask open questions? Or maybe we are usually so self centered that we have no time or desire to hear the other person out?
These are definite possibilities, Thomas. And both new to me. I will include these ideas in my next workshop. It will be interesting to see how many people relate to each suggestion. Thanks for taking the time to send these to me.