andresarh,
Thanks for your question. As a sale professional with over 10 years
of experience, I found your question interesting.
While both open-ended and closed ended questions are important in the
sales process, the time and place to determine when to use each type
will determine their overall success. Open-ended questions improve
communications because they allow the prospect or customer to speak
freely and the answers tend to be more than one or two words.
Open-ended questions develop trust, are perceived as less threatening
and allow an unrestrained or free response. When establishing rapport
or on initial sales calls or prospecting, open-ended questions are key
in that they allow the customer to talk about their favorite subject:
their business or themself.
Closed-ended questions are questions that normally are answered with a
"yes" or "no". They key to the successful use of closed-ended
questions is determined more along the lines of when they are used.
Obviously, you want to hear (and get the customer to say) yes as many
times as possible, however, when using closed-ended questions, the
sales professional must be prepared for the no answer when expecting
yes as this will bring any objections or stalls to the front of the
conversation.
Some examples of open-ended questions (taken from JustSell.com
[http://www.justsell.com/content/tools/gst0002.htm]:
What prompted you/ your company to look into this?
What are your expectations/ requirements for this product/ service?
What process did you go through to determine your needs?
How do you see this happening?
What is it that you’d like to see accomplished?
With whom have you had success in the past?
How did you get involved in… ?
What kind of challenges are you facing?
What’s the most important priority to you with this? Why?
What do you see as the next action steps?
What is your timeline for implementing/ purchasing this type of
service/ product?
What other data points should we know before moving forward?
What budget has been established for this?
What are your thoughts?
Some examples of closed-ended questions, from Open versus Closed Ended
Questions [http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/jrichardson/dis220/openclosed.htm]:
Can I help you?
May I help you?
Can you give me more information?
Have you searched elsewhere?
Can you describe the kind of information you want?
Can you give me an example?
Could you be more specific?
Are you looking for [topic]?
Would you tell me more about [topic]?
Is there something specific about [topic], you are looking for?
Is there any other information that you need?
Is there any thing else that I can help you find?
Thanks again for your question. I hope you find the above information
helpful. If you need any additional clarification, please let me know
prior to rating my answer. Good luck and good selling!
Regards,
-THV
Search Strategy:
closed ended questions sales
open ended questions sales |
