A productive discovery call could mean the difference between winning and losing a deal.
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Your discovery call sets the trajectory and builds the momentum.
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So, what makes a great discovery call?
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It actually depends on the customer type you’re selling to.
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We analysed 126,000 recorded discovery calls with AI to understand what drives successful outcomes.
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These discovery calls were recorded on web conferencing platforms with MeetRecord , transcribed, and analyzed with unsupervised machine learning to identify the discovery call questions and techniques that drive revenue.
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Let’s take a look at our learnings.
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Discuss 3 Pain-points During Your Discovery Call
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First, we found that the most effective discovery calls uncover around three business problems.
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The algorithms that analysed the calls in this study are able to detect what topics are being discussed at each point of the call.
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The most successful salespeople tend to dive deeply into 3-4 customer pain-points, and then wrap up logistics and next steps at the end.
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Why “3-4 customers problems”?
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Why not more? Could be anybody's guess
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But my hypothesis is that less than that, and you don’t have a buyer in enough pain.
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More than that, and they have too many priorities going on at once to make any headway with you.
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It's a choice between spreading yourself thin and being all over the place. 3-4 is sort of a sweet spot!
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Ask 12 Discovery Call Questions
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This leads us to our next discovery call data point.
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The number of discovery call questions to ask.
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We found that asking between 11-13 discovery call questions during the course of the call correlates with the greatest success.
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Less than that and your discovery call might not be robust enough.
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More than that, and it will likely start to feel like an interrogation, rather than a natural conversation.
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A Few Tips on Discovery Call Questions
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First, the types of discovery call questions you ask matter dearly.
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Asking a generic line of questioning is likely to get you kicked in the teeth.
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Your best bet for discovery call success is asking questions about key business problems or goals the customer is trying to solve for.
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Let me explain the above chart.
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Like I mentioned, the call recording technology we used to analyse these discovery calls can identify specific topics that are being discussed.
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We found that top sellers most after ask their questions while discussing problem-related topics with their buyers.
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They ask fewer questions outside of discussing those topics.
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Here’s your next tip on asking discovery call questions.
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Phrase your questions in a way that prompt your buyer to give you a long response.
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We found that there’s a direct correlation between getting your customer to talk uninterrupted for a long time in response to a discovery call question.
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Here are some ways you can phrase your questions for a long response…
- “Can you help me understand…”
- “Can you walk me through…”
- “Talk to me about…”
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Phrasing your discovery call questions in these ways encourages your buyer to respond thoroughly.
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Which helps your cause in closing the deal.
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Make Your Discovery Call Conversational
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The more your discovery call feels like a natural conversation, the better.
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Avoid pitching.
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But also avoid interrogating your buyer with questions.
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Notice the question velocity the most successful salespeople.
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Top sellers balance and spread their discovery call questions evenly throughout the sales call.
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“Average” salespeople, by contrast, “frontload” their questions at the beginning of the call.
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It’s as if they’re making their way through a to-do list of pre-loaded discovery call questions.
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It also turns out that the more back-and-forth dialogue there is, the more likely you’ll succeed.
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We measured “speaker switches per minute,” and found there is a strong correlation with discovery call success.
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In other words, your discovery calls should feel like a “tennis match,” not a football game 🙂
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The Ideal Discovery Call Talk-to-Listen Ratio
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When you follow all of the above discovery call techniques, you naturally end up with a winning “talk-to-listen ratio.”
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You listen more.
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You get your customer to talk more.
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On an average, we see an engaging conversation when the customer is talking 70% of the time.
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But, after talking with few sales managers, we realize it is a lot dependant on sales person's ability.
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Someone who focuses on relationship building might have this number in a lower range.
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Objective is to do in a natural way. One that doesn’t feel like an abrasive interrogation or barrage of discovery questions.
