Key Takeaways
- Teams spend more time when they don’t know what customers need before a call.
- Ask customers about the call’s purpose, topics, and expected outcome.
- Collect useful details such as attendee information, background context, meeting preferences, and contact details before the call.
- Picktime’s meeting scheduling app lets you collect pre-call information through custom fields while managing bookings in one place.
Most small businesses can manage a call more easily when they know why the customer booked it. When your team is already aware of what the customer wants to discuss, they can prepare better and get to the point faster. Without that information, your team may spend the first few minutes asking the basic questions instead of addressing the issue. However, a meeting scheduling app can help businesses collect these details before the meeting starts. This guide will help you learn about some necessary questions that you should ask before every call and how they can help your team prepare better for each meeting.
Why Ask Questions Before a Call?
Asking the right questions can make the purpose of the meeting clear before it starts. Moreover, you can learn what the customer wants to discuss, what they need help with, and what they expect from the call. This information will help your team to prepare with the right documents, resources, or questions in advance. It also makes the conversation more focused because you already know why the person booked the meeting. Here are a few questions you can add to your booking process to get the right information before the call.
1. What Is the Main Purpose of the Call?
Businesses can start by asking why the person wants to meet. They may need a consultation, product discussion, follow-up, interview, or support session. When your team knows the reason for the call, they can focus on the customer’s main concern instead of spending time figuring it out.
2. What Would You Like to Discuss?
Let customers mention the topics they want to discuss during the call. They might have specific questions, concerns, or requirements that are not clear from the booking alone. As a result, your team has time to prepare and give the customer the right support.
3. What Outcome Are You Hoping to Achieve?
You need to ask your customers what they want from the meeting. Their answer can help your team understand the expected result and plan the discussion based on it. For example, a customer may want advice, a solution to a problem, or information about a service.
4. Who Will Attend the Meeting?
Ask how many people will attend the meeting and, if it helps, find out what their roles are. When your team has an idea of who will join, they can prepare for the call. This is especially helpful for meetings where several people may need to participate.
5. Is There Any Background Information We Should Know?
You can use a meeting scheduling app to ask customers to share useful context before the call. They could provide a website link, project details, reference numbers, or other information related to the meeting. With a scheduling tool, your team can review these details beforehand and spend more time discussing the actual issue.
6. Which Meeting Format Do You Prefer?
Some customers may prefer a phone call, while others may be more comfortable with a video meeting. Asking this during booking helps you understand how they want to meet. Scheduling software that integrates with video meeting tools like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting, and Jitsi Meet makes online meeting setup easier. Businesses that regularly meet with clients or teams online will benefit from this.
7. What Is the Best Way to Contact You?
First, make sure the customer’s contact details are correct, so they receive booking updates and other important information. This can include their email address or mobile number. In addition, having accurate contact information also helps businesses send timely appointment confirmations and reminders before the meeting.
How Picktime Helps You Collect Pre-Call Information
Picktime’s appointment scheduling software lets you add and book additional fields to your online booking page so you can collect information related to each meeting. You can collect customer contact information during booking and add additional fields when you need more details. You can add an additional booking field such as ‘What is the purpose of your call?’ and mark it as required when customers must answer it before completing the booking. To manage these fields, go to Online Booking → Settings, scroll to Booking Settings, and find Booking Additional Fields. Add your question, select Required if customers must answer it, and click Save. With a meeting scheduling app, you can add the questions your team needs to prepare for the meeting. However, remember to keep them short so customers can complete the booking easily.
Conclusion
When your team asks useful questions before a call, customers can share the details you need to prepare. This simple step of asking can help your team feel more prepared and make each meeting more focused. Now that you know which questions to ask before a call, you can create a booking process that works better for both your team and customers. Most importantly, Picktime’s meeting scheduling app helps you collect pre-call details through booking additional fields while managing bookings, confirmations, reminders, and meeting scheduling from one dashboard.
Start scheduling your next call with Picktime and make it easier for your team to prepare for every meeting.
FAQs
1. Why should businesses ask questions before a meeting?
Asking questions before a meeting helps your team understand the customer’s needs, prepare relevant information, and make better use of meeting time. Picktime lets you collect these details during the booking process.
2. How can a meeting scheduling app collect pre-call information?
A meeting scheduling app can use custom fields on the booking form to collect details such as the meeting purpose, questions, attendee information, and other useful context. Picktime supports Booking Additional Fields for information that may change from one meeting to another
3. Can I add custom questions to a Picktime booking page?
Yes. Picktime lets you add custom questions through Booking Additional Fields and mark them as required when customers need to provide specific information before the meeting
4. What should businesses do with the information collected before a call?
Review the information before the meeting so your team can understand the customer’s needs and prepare the right questions, documents, or resources. Picktime keeps these booking details available to help your team prepare.
