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Questioning is an essential skill for being able to provide excellenct customer service, follow the below questioning model to identify your customer's exact needs.

1- Goal: Find out your customer’s ultimate goal.

First you need to agree with your customer and clearly understand his/her ultimate goal from this visit/call, what type of service/product is he looking for? So the customer’s specific, measureable, and realistic goal is very clear in your head.

In doing so it would be useful to ask questions like:
• Why are you shopping for a new mobile phone?
• What would you like the new phone to be able to do?
• What problems are you currently having with your mobile phone/service?

2- Reality: Examine the customer’s current reality and situation.

Next you need to find out about the customer’s current situation by clearly understanding what type of service is he getting now or products he is currently using and has used in the past and are there any specific problems he is currently experiencing.

In doing so it would be useful to ask questions like:
• What type of service are you using now?
• Whom have you used in the past?
• How was your experience with the last product/service you used?

 3- Options: Explore available options together.

Once you clearly understand your customer’s current reality and situation, you need to explore together all the options that can be offered to match both his/her needs & to cover any shortcomings in his current plan/service/product

After explaining all the different options it would be useful to ask questions like:
• Do you agree that our second option would be the most suitable to your needs?
• Do you wish us to customize this option further to better fit your need?

4- Will: Take responsibility and gain commitment from the customer.

By examining the current reality and exploring all available options, both you and your customer will have a good idea of how he/she can achieve the goal, solve the problem or provide the appropriate services. So the final step would be to show your customer that you are committed to the solutions agreed and to get a commitment from the customer that he/she is ready to go for the new agreed options/solutions within an agreed upon timeframe.

In doing so it would be useful to ask questions like:
• Would you like me to go ahead and do this for you right now?
• When is a convenient time for you to go ahead and do this?
• What’s the best time for you to start this process?