Today, in this article I would like to talk about one training, or rather, one training exercise on. In my opinion, the exercise, if done correctly, can simply open your eyes, unless of course it is required, it allows you to take a different attitude to communicating with a client and conducting a sale. After all, often, inexperienced sellers try to talk about all the advantages of their product without hearing the client at all. And such trainings are needed, such trainings to identify needs allow you to “correct” thinking. But first things first.

First of all, about the very phenomenon of identifying needs. For example, a visitor came to us. For what purpose he came, what needs he has, we do not know. And we can go two ways:

The first is to draw conclusions in advance and try to offer something. This path can be considered as an option. But if we don't know how to read minds, then we can simply not guess. We can talk about the benefits of the product, but the customer does not need these benefits. So it turns out either an objection or a refusal.

The second way is to find out why the visitor came to us. That is, find out the needs.
The second way will be discussed further.

Types of questions to identify needs

Questions help us identify needs. There are three main types of questions:

Open questions

Open-ended questions encourage the client to talk. More on this type of questions below.

Closed questions

Closed questions require a one-word yes or no answer. This type of question is not very informative, but allows you to get a direct answer. It is useful in the case when we have received the basic information and we need a final clarification. The canonical example of such a question is the completion of a transaction:
"Are you satisfied with this decision?" or “Do you like it? Do you take it?"

Alternative questions

Alternative questions imply a choice from the options "either - or". For example, when we received information and we need clarification:
"Black or white version?" or “Do you have two options or one?”.

Types of open questions

Open-ended questions are the most informative, so they should be used more than the other two types of questions.

Questions of priorities

Probably the most important type of open questions. Questions about priorities allow you to understand what is more important for the client in choosing.
For example: “What is most important for you in choosing?”.

Identity Questions

As noted above, we do not know how to read minds. Therefore, if the first question about the priorities of the client, for example, says that reliability is important to him, then this can mean anything.
Therefore, it makes sense to ask what "reliable" means to the client.

Questions about the reasons

Open-ended questions about the reasons allow you to understand why the client decided to make his choice. Once a client came to us, then there was a reason for this. Here's a reason to find out:
For example, "In connection with what did you decide to choose ...?" or “What did you not like about what you had before?”.

Questions about circumstances

That is, these are questions about how often the client plans to use our product, in what quantity, under what conditions. That is, here we find out the circumstances of the use of the product.

Questions as a tool

Questions are not needed to keep the dialogue going. You need to hear the answers.
An example is a story that a friend told me. She went into a clothing store, planning to buy a warm, black sweater. The consultant asked questions about my friend's needs and listened carefully. And then he brought a gray, transparent jacket. Then the friend left without buying.
The next exercise allows you to learn how to ask questions and listen to the answers.

Exercise training

The exercise is pretty simple. Two are involved. One prepares a simple drawing. The second must ask ten questions to understand what is shown in the figure. And after the tenth question, the second participant passing the exercise must draw the drawing that the first one prepared.
The purpose of the exercise is to develop the skill of asking questions. As the exercise progresses, the value of open-ended questions becomes clear.
It also improves listening skills. After all, asking a question and asking a question and getting an answer are two different things.

Hello! In this article, we will walk you through the process of identifying customer needs.

Today you will learn:

What is a need;
How to properly build a dialogue with the client in order to identify his needs;
What types of questions exist and how to apply them correctly;
What mistakes should not be made when determining the needs of the client.

As the number of companies in the market grows, so does the power of the consumer. Screens are full of advertising messages, promoters invite customers to discounts, and supermarkets hold tastings to increase sales. But all your customer acquisition efforts can be useless if you don't know what your customer wants.

What is a "need"

Identifying the customer's needs is the second step in sales, but it's really necessary to start thinking about identifying needs much earlier. But let's first deal with the very concept of "need".

Need - Needs embodied in specific goods and services. From this follows another concept - needs. Unlike needs, needs are innate, they are everything without which a person cannot continue his life. Need manifests itself in human needs.

Needs are:

In safety;
In belonging to any group (class);
In comfort;
In reliability;
In novelty.

In addition, needs are conjugated and non-conjugated. Associated need - its satisfaction entails the birth of another need. For example, you bought a blouse, but now you need a skirt to match it. The task of the consultant is to detect both needs (before the second one arises) and satisfy them.

As mentioned earlier, identifying needs is the foundation of the foundations in the sales organization. But for the first time, it is necessary to think about what our potential consumers need at the planning stage, that is, marketing, as a process of identifying the needs of the target audience, should come before production (or purchases, if).

Any should be built around the needs of a specific target audience. Otherwise, you will produce (or purchase) a product that will gather dust on the shelves of a warehouse or store.

Take as a basis main principle marketing: “Don’t sell what you have produced, but produce what you can definitely sell.” And for this, each decision of an entrepreneur must be supported in order to determine the needs of the target audience.

Now let's talk about the sales process itself.

The entire sales process consists of five steps:

Search and evaluation of the buyer;
Determining the needs of the client and establishing contact with him;
Product presentation;
Elimination of disagreements and objections;
Conclusion and follow-up of the transaction.

Why it is necessary to determine the customer's need in the sales process

In fact, if you successfully completed the first two stages of the sale, you can be sure that the client will buy your product. At the same time, the process of finding and evaluating a buyer should be treated as a preparatory stage before determining the needs of the client. Let's find out why the correct identification of needs is so important in the process of selling a product.

Firstly, the customer came to you to solve their problem. The same product can solve completely different problems.

Example. A man wants to buy curtains. The consultant asks the potential buyer about the design of the room for which the curtains are selected, finds out an acceptable price range and demonstrates the best options. But the visitor leaves without buying. What is the seller's mistake? The thing is that the consultant did not find out what benefit the client wants to receive from the purchase, in other words, he did not determine the client's problem. We specifically took curtains as an example to show that even the simplest product can solve several problems at once. For example, curtains can carry two functions: decorating the room and protecting from the sun. In our example, the consultant was solving the problem of decorating the room, and the client wanted to protect himself from sun rays. This mistake led to the collapse of the deal.

Secondly Without knowing the customer's needs, you will not be able to counter their objections, and this is the fourth stage of the sales process. Any customer objection is a doubt that your product will be able to in the best way solve his problem. You must rid him of these doubts, otherwise the client will simply leave you for competitors.

Thirdly, in the process it is very important to make it clear to the client that you sincerely want to help in solving his problem. This cannot be done without understanding the problem itself.

Needs Identification Methods

And now, the client is already in your store. How to understand what he wants? He needs to tell you about it himself, there is no better way yet.

However, all people are different. Someone happily shares their experiences with others, while someone is silent like a partisan. An individual approach to building a dialogue should be applied to each client.

This leads to two methods for identifying customer needs:

Questions;
listening.

Both tools must be used in the process of building a dialogue with both an open client and a partisan client. But in the first case, we should listen more, and in the second, we should ask.

I would like to immediately draw attention to the fact that your dialogue with the client, regardless of whether he belongs to one type or another, should not look like an interrogation. Consumer speeches should take most your dialogue with him. A good salesperson is like a good psychologist. The task of these specialists is to identify and solve the problem of the client, and for this it is necessary to bring the “patient” to a frank conversation and listen to him.

How to identify customer needs

Let's get back to sales. Where to start a conversation?

Recall the first stage of the sales process - finding and evaluating a buyer. You should not immediately approach a potential consumer and impose on him a product that he does not need.

Forget about the annoying question for everyone: “Can I help you with something?”. At the time of the first contact with the client, you should already know how you can help the visitor. To do this, watch him for the first 30-40 seconds, this will allow you to determine the type of product that the client came for.

Example. You are a salesperson in a women's clothing store. The visitor pays the most attention to strict trousers in office style. Start your dialogue like this: “Good afternoon, my name is Anna. Today in our store there is a new arrival of the office collection, as well as discounts on the old arrival of this line up to 50%. Come on, I'll show you."

5 questions to identify customer needs

After the client has agreed to accept your help, you need to include questions in the dialogue.

Questions are of the following types:

Closed questions- all those questions that can be answered unambiguously. You should not abuse them, otherwise you will not get the amount of information that you need. Example: “Do you like dress pants?”
Open questions- questions that require a detailed answer. But here, too, danger lurks. If the client is not interested in continuing the dialogue, then he will try to quickly escape from the store. Example: “Which pants do you prefer?”
Alternative questions These questions already contain several possible answers. Example: “Do you prefer skinny pants or dress pants?”.
Suggestive questions- are necessary when the client himself is not yet aware of the need for himself. Example: “When choosing trousers, it is very important to determine what time of the year you will wear them, if you buy them for the summer, then light natural materials will suit you, what do you think?”
Rhetorical questions- atmospheric questions. They serve to maintain a conversation, form friendly relations with the client. “You want your pants to fit perfectly, don’t you?”

The advantages and disadvantages of each type of questions are shown in the table.

	Advantages	disadvantages	Tasks
Closed questions	It is easy for the client to answer them	Turn dialogue into interrogation; Provide insufficient information	Getting more information; Obtaining basic information in working with guerrilla clients
Open questions	Allow to receive the most complete information from the client; Allow the client to speak	They can do a disservice and scare away the client; The seller does not always decode the answers correctly, which can cause the client to leave forever; Take up a lot of time	Starting a dialogue
Alternative questions	Allows you to get enough information about the basic need; Not as intrusive as open questions	Prevent the identification of related needs	Definition of the basic need; Motivate the client to action; End of dialogue
Rhetorical questions	Contribute to the formation of a friendly atmosphere	take time	Formation of the atmosphere
Suggestive questions	Contribute to the formation of the need; Push to action	Can confuse the client	Formation of need

In addition to the above, you can use clarifying questions. This is especially true if you are working with open questions.

As a result, you should receive a kind of client questionnaire, which will contain all the necessary information.

Listen right

Now I would like to pay attention to the process of listening. It would seem that there is nothing difficult in listening to the response of a potential client, no, but it is not. If potential buyer sees your disinterest, then you will lose him forever.

Dialogue is a kind of game with a client, in which you must adhere to the following rules:

Do not interrupt the interlocutor. First, let them speak and only then ask clarifying questions;
Maintain eye contact. This will allow you to understand the client's mood regarding the further continuation of the dialogue;
Give up the idea of interrogating the client. If a person does not want to make contact, he is closed, then you should leave him alone;
Suggest options. This will make it possible to interest the client in further continuation of the dialogue, because they really want to help him here;
Keep up the conversation. The main techniques for maintaining a conversation with customers are shown in the table.

Make time for the client's related needs

When you have suggested a suitable trouser option, start the dialogue again and offer a product that satisfies the associated first need.

For example, our customer has just got a job that requires an office dress code. This means that she can be offered a blouse, jacket and accessories. But to understand whether your client needs this product, you should still be working on identifying and satisfying the first need.

Thus, the process of identifying needs consists of four stages:

First contact with the client;
Identification of the problem with the help of questions;
Listening to the client and offering options;
Satisfaction of related needs.

Needs Identification Exercises

To be confident in your abilities, you need to practice. To do this, get together small company(from three people) and play the game "Who am I?".

Its rules are simple: you write the names of famous heroes on stickers (literary heroes, famous people, cartoon characters) and stick them on each other's foreheads, so that the one to whom you pasted the sticker does not know the name of which character you wrote.

Then everyone tries to guess whose name is written on his piece of paper. He does this with the help of questions to which the other participants in the game can only answer “yes” or “no”. If the questioner receives a negative answer, then the move is passed to the next participant.

Errors in identifying needs

Let's summarize and give the most common mistakes that salespeople make in the process of identifying customer needs:

Don't Focus on Closed Questions. If the client does not make contact, then it is better to leave him alone, and not to arrange an interrogation;
You must discover several needs. Always look for related needs, this will help build customer loyalty and double sales;
Do not present the product in the process of identifying needs. You can offer an option, but you do not need to praise it. This will only create the illusion of imposition and lack of choice for the client;
Be educated. Interrupting a client is the worst mistake a consultant can make when selling and identifying a client's needs;
Stick to your goal - selling a product. Don't let the client get sidetracked and turn the sales process into an appointment with a psychologist. Your task is to solve the customer's problem, but only with the help of your product.

Thus, we got acquainted with the basic principles of determining the needs of the client in the sales process. These principles apply to both face-to-face and telephone sales.

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Today, production has gained such stunning momentum that before modern companies The main issue was marketing. The vast majority of sales managers are as friendly as possible to the client in order to sell him their product or service in as large volumes as possible, and for the highest possible price.

One of the most important points in the sales script is the stage of identifying customer needs.

It is at this stage that it is very important to find out what the client still wants, which product will suit him based on his preferences, which product will satisfy the client in all respects and become his incentive to come to you for the next purchase.

Identifying a customer's need mainly consists of questions that the manager asks. The content of these questions depends final result his works.

How to find out what the client wants and choose the product exclusively for his whims, read in our article.

The need to identify needs

For some reason, many sales managers think that they know everything from birth: what the client wants, what he came for, what purchase will make him happy. Based on the conclusions that sellers usually make on an intuitive level, the dynamics of their work is disappointing. As a result, the client does not go, sales fall, profits are unstable.

Having no idea what a potential buyer wants, even the most experienced sales manager will not be able to satisfy him. Thus, the seller will either advise the product that he needs to sell in the first place, or will present the product that he himself likes.

For example, a client came to a travel agency to buy a ticket in order to tell the culture and way of life foreign countries. Its goal is to purchase a tour to places rich in natural attractions, man-made temples and other landmarks. Without identifying the needs of such a client, the tourism manager sells him a tour to Egypt in an excellent 5-star all-inclusive hotel.

It would seem that everyone should be satisfied: a travel agent who made a profit, and a client who was supposed to relax in a cool hotel with gourmet food and jacuzzi pools. But it wasn’t there: returning from vacation, a disappointed tourist who spent a week at the hotel and told only the yellow sands of the desert beyond his surroundings, not only would he never contact this agency again in his life, he would also tell everyone he knew, that they don't know how to deal with customers.

And it was only necessary to identify the wishes of a potential tourist and offer him a bus tour of European countries.

What is a need

As Wikipedia says, the concept of need should mean a certain feeling of insufficiency of something, under the influence of a situational factor. It follows from this that certain needs may vary depending on the situation.

Consider the situation. A young family from the provinces wanted to buy an apartment in their town. They already had enough money to buy a three-room apartment in the center. However, my husband was unexpectedly offered a job in a capital company with the prospect of career growth. Naturally, the newlyweds moved to the capital, but for a similar amount of money they can afford not three-, but two-room apartments and not in the center, but in best case in the sleeping area.

Thus, the situational factor influenced the family's need for funds: in their native provincial town they were fully provided for, but in the capital, where prices are much higher, they felt a lack of money.

Types of leading questions

As we have already said, for maximum exact definition needs to ask questions. The more competently the question is posed, the more information the manager will receive from the client. In general, there are three types of questions:

Closed. Such syntactic constructions imply a specific answer: Yes/No. Have you ever been abroad?
open. This category of questions is focused on getting a detailed answer. For example, "Tell me, what are your taste preferences?"
Alternative. Such questions always contain possible answers. Do you need a computer or laptop?

Sometimes clients respond to closed questions with full detailed answers. This is not scary: a wise seller will extract the maximum necessary information from this.

To get the client to tell more, start identifying his needs with the words “Tell me, have you used this before?”, “What features are important to you in this device?”, “For what purpose are you buying?”, “Are you buying for yourself or in gift?" etc.

From word to deed

So, we start working with the client at the stage of identifying needs. The first step is to establish a so-called contact. To do this, you need to ask a potential buyer a few questions that are not related to the transaction. These may be questions from the area of its possible purchase, political or economic. The simple technique of asking “nothing” questions puts the customer in the right mood, instills trust in you, and helps them feel relaxed in a supposedly friendly atmosphere. Such questions may be:

“Have you heard about the new bill to reduce the customs tax on cars? What do you think of it?".
"Where did you last vacation? What did you like the most?"
“I read that visas to Europe will be canceled soon. What do you think about this?"

After asking a few of these questions, follow the behavior of the client. He should emotionally relax and see you as a like-minded person. If he starts to get nervous, immediately move the conversation to another topic.

Then start boldly practicing specific open-ended questions to the point.

What is the purpose of your purchase?
What features in a smartphone do you need in the first place?
What do you expect from this holiday?
How important is a brand to you?
How many people plan to use the boiler?
Which apartment would you like to buy? Tell me more.
What did you not like about working with previous suppliers?
What is your ideal wedding?

It is good if the client speaks directly and clearly. If you cannot call him a master of conciseness and clarity, ask more specific questions.

What is more important to you - design or practicality?
So that I can pick you up the best option I need details.
What type of recreation is closer to you - active sightseeing or passive beach?

Next, we turn to questions about the amount. Do not be shy to ask money questions: the modern buyer is already used to this. In addition, many clients are price oriented, and many of your, at first glance, offers may be rejected only because they do not fit into their budget.

An open question is one way to get information. The person who asks open-ended questions usually begins with the words: "who ...", "what ...", "how ...", "why ...", "how much ...", "in connection with what ... "," what is your opinion ... "

Open questions are one of better ways it is better to get to know a stranger, to make friends. Experienced negotiators use open-ended questions to "talk" shy or nervous people. Educators often use open-ended questions when working with children or international students.

Purpose of the open question

Listening to the answer to his question, an experienced counterpart deliberately introduces himself into a certain emotional condition, allowing the potential client to feel like the main person involved in the meeting. As practice shows, an inexperienced person, finding himself in such conditions, loses his head and can even inform his interlocutor about what he did not plan to.

In the event that the expected effect is not achieved, the person asking the questions makes the next attempt to talk the client - does everything in his power to turn the failed monologue into the beginning of a dialogue.

Why do people ask open-ended questions?

Open questions are fast way receive Additional information and learn about the true motives that drive the interlocutor. The ability to ask the right open questions is a kind of skill that can only be mastered if theoretical knowledge is confirmed by many years of practice.

During the first meeting, the seller tries to outline for himself the circle of interests of the interlocutor and create conditions for satisfying his problems. The experienced negotiator achieves this by asking questions such as “Do you think it might be useful to you…?”, “What are you currently interested in?” and also invites the client to consider his answer options by formulating them in the form of questions, for example : "Why don't you...?", "And if you try to do this...?"

To understand how a potential buyer perceived the seller’s intention to help him make a choice, they ask questions: “How do you feel about this?” or “What do you think?”, and if the client is in doubt, the reasons for the doubts are clarified with the help of questions: “What worries you?”, “What do you doubt?” or “What can be a hindrance?”

Examples of open questions

"What caused this situation?"

"Why do you think your choice is right?".

You might be surprised by the following questions in sales: “What problems can you solve with this product?” shop assistants usually don't ask. But they are actively used by direct sales workers who are interested in long-term cooperation and seek to find a reason to gain the trust of a potential client.

Here are some examples of open-ended questions typically asked by distributors:

“Do you think this acquisition brought you the maximum benefit?”

“When did you first hear about this opportunity?”

“What benefits did you notice?”

Another example of an open-ended question in sales is a question like, “What result do you expect?” gives the seller the opportunity to demonstrate the entire range of goods that meet the expectations of the client, and allows the buyer to make the best choice.

Before going to a meeting with a client, the salesperson carefully considers exactly what questions he will ask, and in what order.

How to start a dialogue

This topic worries almost every newcomer who has decided to devote himself to the field of sales: “how to ask a question to a person who does not intend to listen to me?”

A knowledgeable negotiator uses open-ended questions to better understand the client's needs. Asking his questions, he tries:

to make the wording as clear as possible. The shorter the question, the more likely it is to get a detailed answer;

so that the dialogue does not turn into an interrogation. Questions asked in a casual manner are more likely to be heard.

Of course, the seller must know how to ask the right questions. There are cases when a theoretically savvy novice seller, knowing for sure, did not achieve success. This is because many beginners have never heard that any phrase at the end of which the speaker's voice weakens sounds like a statement of fact. When last words phrases the speaker pronounces, raising his voice, the whole phrase sounds like a question.

Having completely focused on the interlocutor, the seller, listening to his answers, can, in principle, be silent, showing his interest only with an approving smile, a nod of the head, or using the so-called "sign language".

Hearing an unsatisfactory answer that does not make it possible to form an impression of the client, an experienced salesperson does not panic, but continues to show interest through facial expressions, postures and gestures, thus encouraging new attempts by the client to give a detailed answer. During the conversation, the sales representative observes the body movements of the interlocutor. What for? More on this later. And now - about the rules active listening.

An active listener does not interrupt the client, but sometimes says phrases like: “Yes, really!”, “That's interesting!”, And also clarifies everything that is not clear to him using open-ended questions.

As one of the methods, most sellers use next trick: they repeat the words spoken by the client and pause, during which they consider their further actions, and at the same time let the client know that his opinion is of interest to the interlocutor. There are cases when a novice seller offended a client by not paying due attention to his words.

Sign language

If the listener crossed his arms over his chest, he took a defensive position. This posture should be regarded as a signal: "Let's change the subject."

If the interlocutor leans slightly towards the speaker, he is very interested in the conversation.

If a potential buyer scratches his beard (chin), twirls an object in his hands or wipes his glasses, he makes a decision.

If the client sits straight, he is open for communication and fully trusts the seller.

If a person stoops, he is full of humility and wants to please the interlocutor.

If the client absent-mindedly taps the toe of his boot on the floor or on the leg of a chair, draws something mechanically or clicks ballpoint pen- He's bored.

If the listener's body is turned towards front door He waits for the right moment to say goodbye and leave.

If a person covers his mouth with his hands or looks past the speaker, he does not intend to discuss any topic.

How not to have a conversation

Many salespeople feel that during a meeting they should maximum amount time to devote to describing the benefits of the products that offer. But the description of the goods does not guarantee the conclusion of the transaction.

Another common mistake new sellers make is that by trying to answer all the customer's questions, they let the buyer control the outcome of the transaction.

Wrong open questions

“Do you want to save your money?” is an unfortunate example of an open-ended question. Correct wording plays a very important role in sales. If the question is posed incorrectly, he will cease to control the situation and lose the client.

To make sales means to control the development of events. The manager or questioner determines the direction of the course of events, and his interlocutor is to some extent a passenger who travels in the direction that the manager has chosen.

“What do you think will make your life better?” is another bad example of an open-ended question. In sales, different types of questions help to achieve different results, and a sales representative who allows a potential buyer to talk about abstract topics is wasting time.

Proper negotiation

Experienced sales representatives start preparing for negotiations by setting goals, that is, they decide what information about a potential buyer they need and how they can get it.

The beginning of negotiations is, in fact, the collection of information, having received which, the seller can proceed to the presentation. Inexperienced sales representatives make the same mistake - instead of asking a potential client about his needs, they allow him to ask questions himself.

The seller cannot start asking questions without finding out what position the potential buyer holds, since the requirements of an ordinary employee and a manager are significantly different from each other.

Good afternoon, dear colleagues!
After a short break, I continue to publish a number of articles on one of the simplest, and at the same time quite effective techniques for selling banking products and services - it is 5 step sales algorithm.

Today I will talk about the subtleties and nuances second the stage that immediately follows the stage of establishing contact is the stage " identification of needs".
What principles should be adhered to at this stage and what global mistake do many sales managers in the banking sector?

Before moving on to the main points, subtleties and tricks of this stage, I would like to say a few words about the front-line employees of bank offices (operators, account managers). My experience allows us to distinguish three categories of employee data:

1 category (10%)- easy and simple and, most importantly, fully identify the needs of customers, respectively, in the future, these managers can correctly present the main product, additional products, and successfully complete the transaction.

2 category (60%)- these are the majority of managers who identify the needs of customers, but do it not quite correctly, not completely, therefore, when selling in the future, difficulties, misunderstandings, additional objections may arise, there may be no cross-sales, or offered as additional products that are not at all it is worth offering this client (but the manager does not know this, because the needs were not identified correctly).

3 category (30%)— managers who miss this stage. Pay attention - 30% - i.e. almost every third manager, despite the obvious need for this stage, simply misses it. As it usually happens, the client Ivan Ivanovich comes, the manager asks the client what questions he came for. “I want to make a deposit,” Ivan Ivanovich answers, and then the bank manager stubbornly begins to talk about deposits, what they are, what rates, conditions .... literally dumps on the client all the information that he knows. And at the end of his monologue, with a characteristic exhalation, he says “Uff .. well, he seems to have told everything ...” Especially often this error occurs in newcomers.

How does the client feel in this situation? To better understand the client, imagine the following situation.

You are coming to the doctor- you say hello, he asks the purpose of your visit, and you say that you do not feel well. After that the doctor immediately begins to write you a prescription and sends you to the pharmacy for medicines. How would you feel??? But what about the diagnosis? But how to determine what exactly hurts?

I don't think now without any doubts that identifying needs is a very important step that allows you to:
1) understand what the client really wants and what product suits him best;
2) inspire customer confidence. The client should feel that you are really interested in choosing the right and most optimal product for him.

Therefore, by no means do not forget about this stage, identify the needs as fully as possible so that sales bring you maximum results!

Now let's consider the principles work at the stage of identifying needs and techniques that contribute to improving efficiency manager work:

1. The principle of 20% by 80%.

The Pareto principle (I think you have already heard about this principle more than once). It works great in all areas of life. And at this stage too. In relation to the stage of identifying customer needs, this means you should speak 20% of the time, and 80% must be spoken by the client.

2. Take the initiative.

You must manage the conversation, direct the client in the right direction. Knowing your product line, identify the information you need.

How to seize the initiative? Very simple - ask questions YOURSELF! Do not wait for questions from the client! When you ask questions, you control the flow of communication.

There are situations when "aggressive" client he himself starts with questions: for example, “What kind of loans do you have? Tell me about your products! One of the behaviors that allows you to seize the initiative.

“Ivan Ivanovich, with pleasure I will now introduce you to our products. So that I can choose the most optimal product for you (advise you most fully), let me ask you a few questions? (we obtain consent from the client for questions). Now you have the initiative - everything is in your hands!

3. Each question should bring you the right information. Don't ask questions - idle.

4. Compose funnel of questions. For example, if a client came to make a deposit, you should have several typical questions in your arsenal to determine which deposit conditions are most important for the client and which banking product you can present to him.

5. Use different types questions: open, alternative, closed. For which situations, which questions are more appropriate - we will analyze in the following articles.

6. At the end of the stage, be sure summarize basic information, and only then proceed to the next step - presentation.

7. Apply tricks active listening. There is a lot of information about this on the Internet - I think you can easily find the basic techniques.

The main thing, remember, that 80% of the time at this stage the customer is talking, but this does not mean that you are waiting for him to speak out - you need to be actively involved in the conversation, ask clarifying questions, show with all appearance that you are listening and understanding him.

Thus, the main principle of work at this stage is to listen and hear the client.

Remember the rule 20 to 80, come up with a number of questions for each banking product that you will voice to clients, practice asking questions correctly and in the right sequence.

At professional work At this stage, as a result, you should know:
1) product which best satisfies needs client;
2) what needs for customer key(wants save, interested in security and the safety of their funds, is interested and convenience maintenance and service, the image component is important, and so on - each client, of course, has many needs, but you must highlight the key ones and build your presentation (3rd step) based on the identified needs.
3) install with customer fiduciary relationship and show that they heard him, summarize moments voiced by the client.
“So, Ivan Ivanovich, I understand correctly that something is important for you ...”

And only after that we move on to the next stage - the presentation of the banking product!

Sell beautifully and easily!

Sincerely, Oleg Shevelev (