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DIAGNOSE COMPLEX PROBLEMS
(continued ) If there are no indicators, there is no problem. No problem means no incentive to change. Thus, the probability that the customer will make a decision to change is very low. The engagement is over or, at least, any further diagnosis should be postponed until such indicators appear. It is time to move this customer into your opportunity management system for future consideration and engage new customers who are experiencing the indicators of the problems you solve today. Think of yourself as the doctor who finds no symptoms of a health risk or disease during a patient’s annual physical. You wouldn’t recommend surgery and the patient certainly wouldn’t agree to it. However, you would note any symptoms on the patient’s chart, suggest the patient pay attention to them, and schedule an appropriate time to re-examine them. When indicators are present, we continue the questioning process to expand our own—and the customer’s— understanding of the problem. We continue peeling the onion and exposing the full dimensions of the problem by creating sequences of linked questions. We link questions by building each new question on the customer’s answer to the previous question. When we do this, we are encouraging further explanation and additional detail. Communications experts tell us that humans have a natural desire to be understood. With each new question, we tap into that desire in our customers, and together we reach a deeper understanding and a greater level of clarity about the problem. Another tool for drilling deeper into problems and tapping into the customer’s desire to be understood is a question called the conversation expander. Like indicator questions, these questions give our customers the opportunity to expand