I remember the time I brought my Mom to Best Buy for her to purchase a new
laptop. We entered the store and I brought her to the laptop section and
there they stood some thirty or so different models to choose from. Mom
scanned each one and walked around the show room until she honed in on a
particular model which she felt would be good for her.
At that time a young, 19 something, associate came up to Mom and I. He may
have thought our question may be something like 'I like this laptop, what
can it do?' As such he said 'So you like this model, well it has." And he
launched into a laundry list of features which this model had. He did not
notice the vacant stare coming from Mom.
About fifteen seconds into the features list, I put up my hand and said "You
don't understand. She likes the keyboard".
The associate stopped dead in his tracks with this seemingly inane comment.
He thought real hard of what to say next, you could see it in his face, and
meanwhile my Mom looked on waiting as well as she did not want to upset the
young man. He may have thought that our question was what features the
laptop had, and that was not our question. He may then have thought our
question was what new enhancements this laptop had.
After a few moments of thinking, the associate started listed another list
of features the laptop had.
I raised my hand again to stop him and repeated what I said the first time.
"She likes the keyboard, nothing else matters".
Looking defeated or just confused, the associate started to look away when I
told him that Mom will buy this one. His momentary confusion ended as he
realized he had done his job, although he probably had no idea how he had.
Had he started off with the right question, "What do you like about his
model" Mom would have told him that the keyboard was just the right size for
her hands and the keys were big enough for her see and that was all she was
really looking for in a laptop. She used the computer for online scrabble,
email and youtube. Pretty much any model would accommodate those uses.
The associate, like many of us, assumed a different question. He assumed
that we wanted to hear about the laptop and all of its features, without
finding out if that was the case. He did not realize that I am a Help Desk
veteran because he did not ask the right question.
Asking the right question can cut to the chase on most situations and save
us all time and in the case of the Best Buy laptop, some awkward moments and
embarrassment.
So how do we know we are not asking the right question?
Usually it will be just after seeing the eyes of who we are speaking with
glaze over, or sudden long pauses in conversation.
When you realize that there is silence, that is a good time to ask a new
question to help us focus in better on what we really need to do and why.
After we bought the laptop, I had to explain to Mom what all of the features
the nice young man spoke about. She wanted to me remove the webcam, so no
one could look at her when she was using the laptop. I told her it was built
in and she almost had me return the computer. I then told her we can simply
not turn the camera on, and that would do the same thing. After that we were
golden!
Enjoy!
Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
<http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/496058/4755629/http://www.berenberg.net/>
http://learnandgrowdaily.com
<http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/496058/4755629/http://learnandgrowdaily.com
/> <---Cick here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"
http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
<http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/496058/4755629/http://sanfordberenberg.blog
spot.com/>
502-533-9336
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment