Solve the customer’s real problem

Customer sup­port and sales share one par­tic­u­lar skill: find­ing the real request rather than the one the cus­tomer puts into words.

Often a cus­tomer comes to us with a ques­tion that is already part of their solu­tion to a problem. They ask “where do you keep the pen­cils?” because they need to sketch a fire exit plan. Or they ask where the rail­way ticket office is when what they need is to get to the suburbs.

At this point the cus­tomer has found a solu­tion to their prob­lem and is trying to carry it out.

Our job as a sales­per­son or a sup­port spe­cial­ist is not just to answer the question. “The ticket office is over there, the pen­cils are here.” Our job is to find the orig­i­nal prob­lem and offer the best solution.

“We have printed fire exit plans right here.” “Bus number 7 goes to Malynivka; it’s much faster than the train.”

Good sup­port asks lead­ing ques­tions: “What do you want to achieve?”, “What prob­lem are you solv­ing? Do you need a fire exit plan, or do you just want to draw?”

The cus­tomer may, of course, get annoyed by this. As in, “why can’t they just give me an answer? Is it so hard to tell me where the ticket office is?” But once they see that your solu­tion goes deeper, they’ll be very grateful.