Do you know what questions your customers will ask you if you give them permission to ask you?
Your company exists because of your customers. Anything else will be no sense to you and your company. So, it is important to communicate with your customers and give them total permission to start asking you anything that they want to ask you.
If you give your customers permission to ask you any type of questions related to your business, the value you are shipping to them, or even totally unrelated things to your company, you and your business will have a bunch of useful ideas ready to be implemented for future improvements.
So, why do you not give that type of permission to your customers?
Entrepreneurs have often avoided responsibility and not-so-desirable questions to hide their weaknesses. But why? What will you get if you don’t remove all your weaknesses?
Your job as an entrepreneur is to discover all possible weaknesses in your company and put all your effort into removing them or making weaknesses become your biggest strength.
Here, I want to share 20 questions from customers collected from six companies I have worked with in the past year.
1. What are you making that differs from other companies or competitors?
Now we’re talking about differentiation. In a world full of competitors, what makes you stand out? What sets you apart from other companies? The key here is to consider what makes your product unique, what attributes set you apart, and why someone should buy your product instead of something else.
A big part of marketing is building a brand that customers associate with value. So start with a few words that sum up what your company does in a single sentence, or at least three. Then find out what those words mean. Write a short paragraph for each one, and then read those out loud. Do they sound familiar? Do they describe something your company already offers? Is it something your customers expect from you? Are those words and phrases your company’s brand? If they’re not, revise them until they are. If they are, make sure you keep them and use them when you talk with your customers!
2. Do you think you can create a better value for me?
Most customers are looking for something more than just the lowest price. They want to know if your company offers a better value. When you explain how a product will save them money and time or impact their health, they’ll be convinced to buy it.
You should be able to show that your product or service is better than the current market leader. If you aren’t, there’s not much point in selling. Here are a few things to think about:
- Is the value you offering more valuable?
- Do you offer a lower price?
- Does your offering make it easier for me to complete my tasks?
- Will I save time or money if I buy your product or service?
- Can I improve my health with your products?
So, this is another important aspect of persuasive messaging that can increase your chances of closing deals. This tactic has been used effectively by many small businesses and entrepreneurs who have found ways to “create a better value for the customer.” They use compelling messages to convince customers that their products or services are better than alternatives.
3. Can you explain to me your value in less than 5 minutes?
Many companies claim they have some sort of special sauce that will make their company better or better than any other company. But if you have to spend time explaining yourself, why should anyone listen?
People don’t want to hear about how great you are at what you do. They want to understand why they should hire you. They want to know what value you bring to the table. They want to understand what problem you solve and what makes you better than others who do the same thing. If you don’t provide value and tell them why you’re the best person for the job, you won’t make the sale.
People are lazy. They don’t want to read a long blog post or hear long explanations. Many people will pass it by if it requires an extended amount of time to understand the concept. This is why you need to be concise, clear, and specific in your content. Ensure your main message is conveyed in a short amount of words.
4. Why do you think you already have what I really need and want from you? Can you prove that?
It’s all about the proof. This is something when you are trying to persuade someone that you know exactly what they want, and you are giving it to them. It is a powerful sales technique because it implies that the audience knows what is best for them. They should know why they want or need something, but not what they get for their money.
It’s all about having a unique perspective on your product or service. To be unique in this context, you must do a little extra research to find out what your customers need or want. If you don’t have these answers, then you’re going to be left struggling to keep up with other companies who do.
5. How can I believe you are the best solution for me?
This question is related to credibility. How can I believe that you are the best solution for me? Credibility is one of the most powerful influences on your ability to persuade someone to buy something or take action.
People often find themselves unable to make a decision without some kind of validation. In this context, that means you need to ensure the product or service does what they want it to do.
You can’t just tell your audience that you’re the best. You need to convince them. So what can you say and do to earn their trust and show them why they should believe you’re the right choice for their problem?
6. Do you really need those morons to work for you who try to sell me your “shit”?
This is something related to your sales team. It is better for you to ask this question yourself instead of bringing it to the table by your customers.
Are you working with many clueless, useless people who don’t know how to properly sell your products and services? Or do you have a well-trained team of salespeople who are experts at their jobs and really do care about you and your business? I mean, do you have real salespeople or just the occasional low-level employees?
They’re morons because they are selling something that they don’t understand. When looking for quality products, we look for three things: quality, affordability, and reliability. The only thing that will sell us is what we can trust. Such salespeople can not get the trust of your customers.
7. Can you ship me your value in the quickest possible time?
Here your customers will ask about the speed of delivery.
To create urgency, people are going to need to see the results. If there’s no immediate benefit to the customer, they will not feel compelled to buy. So your challenge here is to give a compelling reason why someone should purchase from you and get it NOW versus waiting for the same thing in a few weeks.
Whether you’re working on a product or service, one of the key drivers of success will be your ability to get your value out to customers in the shortest amount of time.
How quickly do you need your product delivered? Will the customer be able to use it within the next week, month, or year? Or do you need a specific date?
8. Why you can’t ship me the value tomorrow?
This question asks about your internal system regarding the shipment and delivery of your products and services. If you ask this question yourself, you will start analyzing the biggest obstacles when it comes to value delivery. So, your job will be to remove them and ensure that your customers will get the value as quickly as possible.
So, the questions you need to ask and respond are:
- What’s your internal process for shipping goods and services?
- How long does it take from the moment you receive a request to the moment you deliver the product or service?
- What are the biggest obstacles to making it faster?
9. Why do I need to pay extra for shipment?
Why do we need to pay extra for shipment? Because the cost of shipping is not included in the product’s price.
When included, shipping is part of the item’s price, so that means the price is higher than if it wasn’t included.
If you include shipping as an added value for your products and services, you must highlight why the benefits of your product or service are worth the price difference between shipping and free shipping.
10. Why are your products late?
If your customers aren’t getting what they want when they want it, you need to figure out why and find solutions. The first step to solving your problem is to understand what is causing your late delivery.
How can you improve the efficiency of your supply chain? How can you bring your operations back to the basics? This is why we see a lot of focus on technology, logistics, and automation in today’s marketplace. These are all great ways to reduce costs and free up your time. But you’ll always struggle if your supply chain is inefficient or not optimized.
11. Why I can’t find you on other today’s “normal” communication tools?
There is no easy way to communicate with people. We communicate differently depending on the purpose of our communication and the method we use. But today’s traditional means of communicating with customers aren’t working.
We can send messages through phone calls, emails, text messages, letters, and video chats, and we can even see each other in real life.
You need to be present on all those channels and the most popular ones. You can easily add additional information about your website or blog on these social networks.
12. Why no one from your company is not responding to my comments on social media, emails, and phone calls?
When you start getting critical messages from your customers, the last thing that you need to do is ignore them. You’re not demonstrating that you care when you don’t respond to their messages.
You don’t want to use the word “no” when someone asks for something. Instead, you should use phrases like “let me check into that,” “I’ll let you know,” or “I’ll get back to you.” In such a way, you’re being polite by letting the person who contacted you know you’re looking into the request. It also shows that you really value their time and are willing to put the matter at the top of your priority list.
13. Why is your guarantee not longer and better?
One of the most common reasons why a guarantee isn’t working is because he or she doesn’t communicate it effectively enough. Many owners assume that their guarantee will act as a source of protection for their customers, but it’s actually an obligation of theirs to their customers.
It’s easy to get caught up in what’s for sale and forget to focus on the guarantee. Make sure your guarantee is clear, specific, and credible.
14. Why I can’t easily order your products and services?
Most of the time, consumers can’t order the things they need because they don’t know where to start. So, if you have a product or service people can’t easily find and order, they’ll probably give up.
Your call to action is a big deal. There are a lot of small changes you can make to it to make it more effective. But one of the most important things to consider when making a call to action is to keep it consistent throughout all of your marketing materials.
Many customers may think that a physical store is the only way for them to purchase your product, but this is simply not true. Today, more customers are purchasing products online than ever before, and the trend will continue. Here are four reasons why it makes sense for your business to offer an online presence:
- Most people want to buy from businesses that are easy to reach.
- Customers will buy your products or services even if they don’t know you.
- You get more sales when you provide convenient ordering methods like phone, email, or text.
- Most customers don’t want to be bothered by the hassle of visiting a physical store.
15. Do I really need to go through all that steps only to make an order from you?
A key reason why customers stick with brands is that they know what’s going to happen when they buy a particular product or service. For example, many people feel comfortable making a purchase from Amazon because they have already gone through the process of adding an account, browsing the catalog, selecting products, placing orders, and checking the status of their orders.
Remember that more steps inside your ordering process will bring you less revenue.
16. Why are you not improving your products and services still after several years?
You should have been improving your products and services continuously. So what is stopping you from continuing to improve?
A business can never be perfect because it is constantly evolving. But there are things that you can do to help improve your business and increase the quality of your products.
17. Why you don’t have new products and services for me?
There will always be a product life cycle. Each new product will come to the market, and after some period of time and a decline in sales, elimination is unavoidable.
18. Do you know my real expectation from your company?
Real expectations are not the same as stated expectations. When asked what their expectations of your company are, people tend to give what they think your company wants to hear.
Your customers expect to find a certain level of quality, reliability, and performance from your product or service, but you don’t know exactly what that expectation is.
Knowing your customer’s expectations of your business should start with a simple question: What do your customers want? There are two key ways to answer this question:
- through your own observations and
- by asking your customers directly.
Observation means talking to them directly, hearing what they say about their experiences and how they feel about your company. The best observation methods are those that are informal and unobtrusive. On the other side, asking is simply talking with your customers and finding what their expectations from you are.
19. Do you really think that your company is the best for me and why?
It’s a simple question to answer. Whether or not you should answer this question depends on how long you have spent thinking about how you want to position your company.
If you truly believe your company is the best for its consumers, then it is the only one. Consumers are smart. They understand the difference between a company that makes their lives easier and a company that makes their lives harder.
20. Why are you not talking in my own language so that I can understand you and your offer?
If you’re using language that doesn’t resonate with your audience, it’s really hard to get them to engage. So, ensure your communication is clear, concise, and engaging. But if you don’t speak your audience’s language, how can they listen to what you have to say?
When you speak in their language, you let them know that they’re on equal footing and that you value them as people as much as they value you. People will respond better if you use language they understand. And even if they don’t understand, they can at least follow along.
Conclusion
As you can see, these questions are only a portion of what can be in the mind of your customers to ask you. They are a collection from six companies I have worked with in the past year, but the list is not final. They are one of the most asked questions I want to share with you here.
Question: What is your experience as an entrepreneur regarding the questions your customers ask you about your company?
