What are good questioning skills?
In order to assist the member in making an informed decision, you may have to ask questions to gather information, seek opinions or gauge feelings.
Good questioning skills put you in control of the call and help you anticipate concerns or queries.
A poor response is a result of a weakly constructed question.We will now consider the main question types.
OPEN QUESTIONS
These help more information to be more forthcoming and free flowing. Examples are:
PROBING QUESTIONS
These are open questions that enable you to gather information and the "5 whys” is particularly useful to gain a better understanding of things.
For example, a member is unhappy and contacts you:
Why – because he didn’t receive his PCLS on time
Why – because we didn’t have sufficient funds in the trustee bank account
Why – because we didn’t arrange a disinvestment of funds in time
Why – because we didn’t remember
Why – because we were working on other things
Action – clearly the process needs reviewing for prioritising work.
A simple scenario with one powerful word!
CLOSED QUESTIONS
These are clarifying questions used to test understanding and gain commitment.
Examples are:
A simple "yes” or "no” answer can effectively stop the conversation.
RECALL QUESTIONS
These simply ask the person to recall something from memory.
For example, a typical security question is "What is your mother’s maiden name?”
LEADING QUESTIONS
These try to lead a person in a particular direction and tend to be closed questions.
They are good for getting the answer you want whilst leaving the other person with the feeling they had a choice!
Be careful when using these type of questions with members.
QUESTION FUNNEL
This starts with general questions then you would hone in on various points by asking more detailed questions at each level.
Typically there may be several layers from the top to the bottom of the funnel:
