This insight can be used to reverse engineer problems or even to recognize the patterns that were only picked up on subconsciously before. Prediction can be a powerful tool. It combines knowledge with feeling, creating a hypothesis of sorts. Though you should avoid relying on them exclusively, they do provide a deeper understanding of a current situation because they force you to look ahead.
Intent can differ greatly from delivery, which is why this question can be so informative. What was the plan? Did you stray from it? Did you discover a new train of thought that led you somewhere else? In other words, now that you have this information, what new questions arise? This question is designed to dig deeper into an issue and to encourage the exploration of all of its facets. Worst-case scenarios can provide a great deal of insight.
Though they are powerful tools for vocalizing and naming fears, they are also powerful for realizing that perhaps the fear is less scary than it sounded in your head. Either way, this type of question demands the person asked to look ahead. Asking someone about a best-case scenario can be just as powerful as its counterpart. If everything goes as planned, what are we hoping to accomplish here?
Is it worth it? Every challenge has something that laid the foundation for it. Though this question can be philosophical at times, it can also provide a great deal of insight into what the actual issue is as well as how to address it.
This question is designed to seek and provide perspective. If the situation were reversed, how would you handle it? Probing questions are intended to challenge assumptions and beliefs. More than just to verify the truthfulness of the other party's claims, this question is asking how they reached those conclusions. When approaching situations, it can be easy to focus on either the positive or negative aspects.
This inquiry asks the other person to examine and assess both sides. As we mentioned before, drawing connections is a great way to develop new and creative solutions. The importance of probing questions in teaching… Trying to come up with ideas for smart, thought-provoking probing questions is never easy.
Actually asking them, in time, specifying a certain time for them, and designing a creative strategy for them is a whole other dilemma and amazing teaching skills. As the world is changing, new elements have come to live in teaching including asking probing questions. Teachers have been forced to be introduced to new techniques in teaching especially with the overwhelming of the new methods in learning. They have sought to change their habits.
In the article, we also share probing techniques and skills to help better present these questions to your customers. Probing questions are questions that you ask to gain greater insight into what someone has just told you, helping you to uncover the reasons and emotions behind what they have said.
But we also want to ask probing questions for an equally, if not more, important purpose, and that is to understand how they feel.
Here are ten examples of probing questions to help gather more information that will improve your contact centre problem solving. Establishing when the problem began is key to isolating the root cause. This will also give us great insight into how long the customer has been suffering from the problem, which will influence our next actions.
A key question to understanding whether or not the customer inadvertently created the issue themselves. We just need to be careful about how we frame it, so we do not sound accusatory.
Understanding whether or not this is a repeat problem will tell you whether the problem is a one-off incident or systemic. By getting to grips with the actions the customer has taken to resolve the issue, we can ensure that we are not passing on any advice that has previously failed. If the customer has tried to fix the issue themselves, look closer at this. There may be reason in their logic, meaning that the customer and advisor can work together to problem solve.
It is often the case that a customer will provide a really long response to your opening question, but we want to focus on the issue at hand.
Active listening and this probing question will enable you to do that. When customers fail to explain the issue clearly, help them out by asking for an example. This will clear things up for you and make it simpler for the customer to articulate their problem. Not all of the information that customers give you will be relevant. If you want to refocus a customer on a specific point without dismissing the rest of the information that they have provided you with, this is a polite probing question to reframe the conversation.
Sometimes customers expect us, as the contact centre advisor, to solve their problem and to blow their socks off in the process. If we sense that this is the case, we can ask this probing question to gauge customer expectations and manage them thereafter. That will be their interpretation at least. Smiling while speaking is a good tip to help you achieve that.
For more on the topic of making customers feel good about themselves, read our article: Top 25 Positive Words, Phrases and Empathy Statements.
People communicate in different ways. If we can communicate with customers in the way that best suits them, they will respond better to our probing. These are:. For more on using these two methods of communication, while better controlling calls, check out the video below, which comes from Carolyn Blunt of Ember Real Results. Knowing when to use either method of communication will enhance your probing skills and is a simple way to improve customer experience.
There are many different factors that play a part in what information we let in and what we leave out when talking to customers and probing them for more insights. Filtering helps us to determine what type of customer we are talking to and the picture below shows three key types of customer filters.
When a customer wants to move towards a solution , the agent should focus their probing around finding the solution. When a customer wants to move away from a problem , the agent should focus their probing around helping the customer steer clear of the situation and prevent it from happening again. When did the problem first arise? For more on how to use this probing technique in the contact centre, read our article: Want to Speak in the Same Language as the Customer? Use Filtering!
To use this technique, you need to understand the difference between big chunk and small chunk customers, as highlighted below. Big Chunk Customers — These customers are focused on the big picture and want very few details.
With big chunk customers, just get to the point. When probing the customer, focus on only the key pieces of information that are needed to solve that query.
Small Chunk Customers — These customers are interested in the small details and like you to be very specific. Small chunk customers value it when you are very thorough in your probing, so listen to them and repeat back even the minute details, to show a clear understanding. Yet the trouble with this technique is that it may not be easy to immediately spot if the customer is big chunk or small chunk. Probing customers can be a tough task when dealing with impatient customers. For customers that seem to be in a rush, an advisor can frame the conversation differently.
Telling the customer what you will do for them is the perfect place to start. This helps to justify all questions in advance! To improve questioning and probing, active listening is the most important skill to develop. After all, advisors need to stay focused, refrain from interrupting and recap key bits of information that the customer gave them.
So if we want the techniques presented in this article to be as effective as possible, we are going to need to develop listening as a key contact centre skill. Also, perhaps not to the same extent, for the most effective contact centre communication, we want our advisors to have the five following questioning and probing skills.
To close this article, we wanted to share a few ideas that our readers have suggested to us on how to improve call control in the contact centre. These techniques, which can be used throughout a customer conversation, may prove helpful when questioning and probing customers.
Use the Funnel Effect and move on to the next line of questioning after confirming understanding with closed questions. It is hugely important to listen to your customer. It is equally important to let the customer answer! It is, after all, pointless asking a question if you are going to answer it yourself from what you believe the customer might say. Use positive language and be energetic and enthusiastic in your delivery, as you need to motivate someone to consider the questions you are asking.
Ideally, you want to inspire them to respond in a likewise manner and to open up the call into a conversation rather than a set of questions and answers. Use your voice to project professional confidence as your customer needs to have confidence in you, so write down what you want to say and rehearse it so that you are prepared. Also, remember that attention should be given to ensuring that conversations are natural and not forced, while you should listen to what your customer has to say and link the answers into the next question.
There are contact centres who ask advisors to only use open questions for probing.
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