Darlene Solomon, Ph.D., has extensive experience understanding the needs of customers in the life sciences and diagnostics industries. She is a retired Chief Technology Officer and senior life sciences executive, and now an independent director on the boards of several public life sciences and diagnostics companies. When we talked about what makes a scientific or technical customer stay with a vendor, she said the difference often isn’t just the product or the price. It’s about what you ask.
“It’s not just being a salesperson,” she told me. “It’s having the knowledge to be able to make an insightful comment or ask a really good question.” The paradox Darlene is alluding to is that the questions we ask often say more about what we understand than what we don’t.
A question is how you show what you already know
It goes without saying that we need to ask questions to learn about our customers—to discover their needs, uncover their pain points, and gather information we don’t have yet. But that was not what Darlene was talking about in our conversation about establishing customer loyalty in the sciences and other highly technical fields.
She was talking about a different kind of conversation with customers who are scientists first. These are customers who have spent their careers developing the assay you are there to ask about. They can tell, in the first minute, whether you truly understand and appreciate their work and the challenges they face or are merely attempting to be engaged. In that discussion, the question is not only how you learn. It is how you show what you already know.
A good question in a field like this has knowledge embedded within it. To ask a scientist why a particular molecule is so hard to measure in their sample, and to ask it in a way that resonates, you must already understand enough to know that it is difficult and why. The question carries the homework. That is what builds trust. The expert hears the understanding behind it before they begin to formulate a response.
You can’t fake a good question
Relevant expertise and research are what sets a good question apart from everything else a vendor can offer. You can rehearse a pitch. You can feign interest in a customer’s project. You can claim on your website that you understand the customer’s world. None of it survives free-flowing conversation with an expert who knows their field.
An insightful question builds credibility and authenticity. Your questions either reveal genuine understanding or expose the lack of it, in the moment, to the one person qualified to judge. Ask the empty question, the one about budget and timeline rather than the science, and you have told the customer exactly how much homework you skipped.
Darlene described the same failure when she talked about products that miss the mark. The problem, she said, is “not being close enough to the customer to fully appreciate the musts versus the wants.” The vendor who can’t ask the right question is usually the one who never got close enough to know which question mattered.
A real question is a form of respect
There is a second thing a good question does, and it is the part that builds respect rather than just credibility. When you ask a scientist something meaningful about their work, you are telling them their work is worth understanding. Even if you don’t understand every technical detail, you are letting them know that you understand their goal and believe it is worthwhile. That kind of interest shows you came prepared to meet them at their level, not to talk past them on your way to a purchase order.
Darlene described one of her teams’ new-to-world products she is especially proud of: a technology her team built alongside the labs that would eventually use it. Those labs understood aspects of the science that the company’s own scientists hadn’t yet appreciated. The success of the project depended on being willing to ask questions—and to take the answers seriously—from the people who knew more. The questions weren’t a sales technique; they were the relationship. And what came out of it became an industry standard for molecular cytogenetics and a market-leading product that achieved significant revenue growth and profitability for more than a decade.
Trust and respect form the foundation of all of this. Not the trust that comes from being likable—though that always helps—the trust that comes from a customer realizing that you fundamentally understand what they are trying to accomplish and are committed to understanding the parts you don’t. In a field where vendors often lead with their own specifications, the vendor who is sufficiently knowledgeable to lead with a real question about the science stands out. Asking the right question says, “This is about you, not about us.”
What it asks of us
The hard part about asking a great question is that there isn’t a shortcut. It comes from the knowledge underneath it, and that comes from doing the work: getting close to the customer’s science and working to understand what they are trying to achieve before you ever walk through the door.
Darlene’s one-line summary captured the whole idea: “It’s about understanding what’s really important to the customer,” she said, “and not just thinking you already know that.”
A good question is the proof that you did the work. It is the moment the customer discovers whether you understand them and are worth trusting. The vendors that customers rely on are the ones who prepare accordingly, ask great questions, and then deliver. That is how a customer comes to feel they are worth more to you than the next sale, and that’s a key part of what makes them stay.
Veris Marketing · verisagency.com/insights/ask-the-right-questions.html