HOSPITALITY SALES MANAGEMENT

HA - 400

ROLE-PLAY COURSE PACK

 

ROLE-PLAY III – DISCOVERING CUSTOMER NEEDS

“ Advanced Questioning to Skillfully Extract Customer Needs”

 

 

 

ADVANCED QUESTIONING FOR “CONSULTATIVE SELLING”

 

 

(Source:  Rackham, Neil, (1988), SPIN Selling, New York:  McGraw-Hill, p. 17)

 

 

OVERVIEW

 

In the 4-Stage Selling Cycle of “Consultative Selling”:

 

(a) Preliminaries Stage (Relationships, Planning, & Warm-up),

(b) Investigating Stage (Need Discovery),

(c) Demonstrating Capability Stage (Presentation), and

(d) Obtaining Commitment (After-Sales Service-Repeat/Referral Commitment)

 

Need Discovery is the most important place that a consultative salesperson can add-value.  They do this through extensive questioning.  There are four types of EXTENSIVE/THOROUGH QUESTIONS that follow a specific sequence:

 

 

QUESTIONS

 

A.        ADEQUATE QUESTIONS FOR NON-COMPLEX SELLING

 

 

 

1.         SITUATION QUESTIONS – These are data-gathering questions; FACT-FINDING questions.  Since consultative salespeople do a lot of pre-planning and investigation, these should not be overused.

 

For Example, “How many attendees?” “What is your budget?”  “Are you shopping the competitors?”

 

 

 

2.         PROBLEM QUESTIONS – After the Fact-Finding questions, successful

salespeople tend to move to FEEL-FINDING questions. These are called problem questions because they explore problems, difficulties, and dissatisfactions in areas where the seller’s product/service can help.  Inexperienced people generally don’t ask enough of these.

 

For Example, “Are you worried that your meeting will not be successful?”  “Have you encountered problems and disappointments with past meetings and the meeting hotel?”

 

 

 

B.        ADDED QUESTIONS VERY NECESSARY FOR COMPLEX SELLING

 

 

 

3.         IMPLICATION QUESTIONS – These questions start with the customer’s problems and explore the problems effects or consequences.  This helps the salesperson to understand the seriousness or urgency of the problem.  Also, these help to AMPLIFY the seriousness to the customer (Bring urgency to the “top-of-the-mind”).

 

These questions are particularly important in complex (consultative) selling situations. Even very experienced salespeople rarely ask them well, but these are the key to success.

 

For Example, “What effect does the lack of seamless and flawless coordination have on your meeting’s success?”  “Is the success of this meeting important to your career advancement?”

 

 

 

4.         NEED-PAYOFF QUESTIONS – The goal of these questions is to get the customer deeply involved—to get the customer to recognize and tell the salesperson (verbalize) the benefits that the seller’s product/service can provide. It’s clear that the buyer is very interested and involved when they verbalize or suggest the benefits themselves.

 

For Example, “If we could provide you certainty of a successful meeting, how would that help you?”   “How would it be useful for us to assign a conference service manager (CSM) on a full-time basis to coordinate your meeting?”