In addition to professional industry knowledge, product knowledge, and excellent characteristics of self-confidence and sensitivity, excellent foreign trade salesmen also have a common feature, that is, they can ask questions.
Only by learning to ask customers questions can we understand the real needs of customers, find ways to deal with customer objections, and conduct business further.
Next, I will share 9 ways to ask questions in my work, hoping to inspire you!
01 End with a question and leave the choice to the customer
I have shared some communication suggestions in the circle of friends. One of the cases ended with a question.
If we feel that a product design required by the customer will lead to quality problems, then we need to use our professional knowledge or practical experience to explain to the customer why.
Finally, end with a question: “According to our practical experience, doing this may cause quality problems. Are you sure if you still need to do this?”
Remember, in communication, we always leave the choice to the customer, let the customer make their own choice, and we are just the one who helps the customer make the choice.
While it looks like the customer is making the choice, we are actually pushing the customer to do so.
Here’s the question, we can use a more euphemistic tone:
Could you please kindly confirm if you………?
Or If possible please kindly confirm…….
02 Use questions to test customer responses
When we quote the customer, or when we introduce the product to the customer, if we end with a declarative sentence, the customer may reply to us with a sentence: I understand, we will contact you later.
Stop immediately, no further.
But if we end with a question later, the effect we receive will be different. for example:
“Is there anything you don’t understand?”
“Are you clear about this?”
“What do you think?”
For example: a client sends me a product to develop, and I’ll ask, “Do you need us to develop the entire design?”
Seeing such a question, at least customers will not refuse coldly.
We are likely to further dig out the needs of customers.
03Using questions to drive business progress
For example, after we send the quotation to the customer, we can ask another question, “Please confirm, do we need to arrange samples?”.
If the customer needs samples, he will tell us whether the price is suitable, or directly tell us that we need samples, and he basically agrees with our quotation.
Then, we have already reached the question of whether to charge the sample fee in the next step, or the question of the completion time of the sample.
Each time we communicate an issue, we move on to the next question.
Repeatedly, push our business forward step by step, and finally achieve the purpose of closing.
For example, the following email is how I throw questions to my clients:
Hi Sam
Attached please find the updated Line Drawings for wardrobe and bed.
If no change we will proceed with quotation asap.
Although the last sentence is a declarative sentence, I still throw a problem to the client.
The customer sees that we are ready to arrange a quotation, so he must see if there is any problem with the drawing.
If there is any problem with the drawing, we will tell us immediately, if there is no problem, we will also tell us, then we can go to the step of quoting.
04 Begin with a question to arouse customer interest
Begin with euphemistic questions, arouse the customer’s interest in the question, then explain the reasons for our question, and finally draw a conclusion.
For example, we received orders from our customers in the Middle East two days ago, and one of the orders was to Egypt. But there are some special conditions on the Egyptian side that will add to our extra cost.
On the one hand, the registration fee for the CARGOMAX system is $150.
On the other hand, in the shipping documents for exodus, both the invoice and the certificate of origin need to be signed by the Egyptian embassy, and the signing fee for the two documents has reached nearly 800 US dollars.
If we export directly to Egypt, we have to pay these additional fees, about $950, which is quite a bit.
But if we can convince customers to go to other countries in the Middle East for transit, we can avoid paying this fee.
My communication here is to throw questions to customers from the very beginning:
If possible please kindly change to other location instead of Sokhna Egypt for PO#123.
We checked that we need to submit documents on Cargomax to get the ACI Number for Egypt shipment.
At the moment we shipped cargo to Egypt only for your company.
The system need pay at least US$150.00 to sign in for first time.
Also we need to pay around $800.00 for the attested certificate of origin and Invoice from Egypt Embassy.
It will cause us total extra cost at least US$950.00 for this PO.
Pls kindly check and confirm back ASAP.Thanks advance so much.
05Use body temperature to handle customer objections
Objections arise for two reasons.
One is due to the curiosity of each person; the other is that the customer did not fully understand because we did not explain it in place.
When the customer raises an objection, we can ask the customer: “You asked this question very well, so why did you ask it?”
For example, in the following case, we can also ask the same question.
A friend of the foreign trade group asked:
Client B, a new deal, asks if the company is working with Client A in their same market. And customer A is an old customer that the company has cooperated with for many years. How should the customer answer this question better?
I believe that many of our friends have encountered similar problems.
We don’t know what the relationship is between these two clients, and if we answer rashly, we may fall into the trap set by our clients and one of them will be lost.
In this situation, many friends answered, “According to the company’s confidentiality system, it is not convenient for us to provide it.”
But I think this kind of answer is a bit blunt, and it is obviously a refusal to answer the customer’s question, which may cause the customer to feel unhappy.
How to do?
We can use the rhetorical question to ask the customer: “Why are you interested in customer A?”
If the customer wants to continue to get the answers he wants, he must tell us his thoughts, which is convenient for us to make targeted answers later.
If customer A is a super big customer in their market, has a relatively large market influence, and can kill customer B in seconds, then we might as well tell customer B. This can also enhance customer B’s purchasing confidence in the company.
If it is not the case above, we can figure out how to answer his question based on customer B’s answer.
06 Use questions to control the flow of the conversation
At every stage of our sales, asking questions drives the business.
- In the opening stage, we can ask questions in the way of curiosity.
For example, “How is your business?”,
“How many times have you come to China?,
“How’s your flight this trip?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
- In the confirmation needs stage, you can use diagnostic questions to build trust with customers and establish specific details:
For example: “Do you need living room furniture or bedroom furniture?”
“Are you shopping for your children, or are you shopping for one of your family members?”
“Which factors are most important to you when purchasing?”
- In the stage of dealing with customer objections and expounding opinions, a three-stage exposition is usually used to enhance persuasion, and finally ask questions to confirm customer needs.
A syllogism is a general pattern of deductive reasoning, handling client objections, and consists of three parts:
Major premise – known general principle,
Minor premise – the special case studied,
Conclusion – Make judgments about special circumstances based on general principles.
When we need to persuade customers about a certain point of view, the three-paragraph reasoning method is a model we often use.
For example: All refrigerators can be refrigerated (major premise), I have a refrigerator in my house (minor premise), and my refrigerator can be refrigerated (conclusion).
Case 1:
Our customers asked if our products had the European certification mark. Our answer, first and foremost, is YES.
To enhance persuasion, we can formulate reasoning in three paragraphs.
“We understand European certification standards, and all our products exported to Europe are certified. (major premise) Please rest assured that the product you buy must (minor premise) be certified.” (conclusion)
Case 2:
When our customers require sliding door wardrobe door panel to adopt full mirror door. But we don’t want customers to use it, because it may cause future quality after-sales complaints.
We can state our point this way:
According to our practical experience, products with mirrors are easily damaged in transit (major premise)
Your wardrobe door should be a full-mirror door. If you use a mirror on such a large door, we are worried that it will be more likely to cause damage to the mirror during transportation, which will lead to increased after-sales problems and increased after-sales costs for both parties (minor premise)
We recommend that you use plank doors. (in conclusion)
Please confirm (or what do you think?).
After explaining your point of view, end with a question and still leave the choice to the client.
Case 3:
For example, if a customer says “the price of your product is too expensive”, we can ask questions gradually:
“Why do you say that?”, “What else?”, “And then?”, “What else?”
- Closing stage: We usually use hypothetical questions to test.
For example, “If there are no other questions, when do you think you can arrange a trial order?”
07Be silent after asking questions and throw the pressure on the other party
During the interview, the interviewer will deliberately not speak for a long time in order to observe the psychological endurance of the candidate, resulting in a long silence.
After we threw the question to the client, many friends couldn’t help but continue to ask the client. They couldn’t bear the interruption of the dialogue process.
And at this time, I suggest to be silent until the client speaks his message.
The sales process is actually a process of control and anti-control.
If we can’t hold our breath and take the initiative in the conversation, we’ve already lost in the first place.
08 Be confident when asking questions
I believe that many of our foreign trade friends have encountered such a situation.
After our quotation was sent, the customer said the price was too expensive.
After recalculating the price and reporting it for the second time, the customer felt that the price was still too high, and the customer still did not accept our conditions.
But customers still communicate with us without a word.
At this time, the customer came to us for the third time to ask for a quotation, but we could no longer lower the price, but the customer tried to lower the price with our peers, and hoped that we would give a lower quotation to complete their “purchasing optimization”.
At this point, we might as well ask:
“You should have seen from our last quotation letter that our products are not won by price, but by product performance.
If you like the performance of our products, please confirm, what features do you particularly like about our products?
Our offer this time will still not be the one with the lowest offer. But now please encourage me, tell me why, let me quote you again? “
At this point, the customer must make a clear statement: he either reluctantly confesses that he just needs our quotation in order to put pressure on his current supplier in terms of price;
Or, the customer really wants our product – then he also has nowhere to escape, but can only speak his mind.
And after that, we took the initiative.