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40 Best Questions to Ask that Can Help You Win the Customer
Good sales come from asking good questions. In this blog post, we have prepared for you a list of the best questions for sales, as well as tips and hints that will help you boost the number of deals during sales conversations.
Understanding your client will strongly influence the success of your sales pitch. Asking the right questions will provide crucial information that will help you to better understand your customer.
Proper questions can help you to get this understanding as prospect's answers provide crucial information for you. Good questions can unveil insights about your customer's needs and goals, helping to find the best solution for them, establishing trustful relations with potential customers, and as a result, leading to a successful deal.
The main aim of a sales conversation is to make the customer talk. To do this, you need to ask a number of open-ended questions; these are questions that cannot be answered simply with a "yes" or "no". Open-ended questions are designed to gather detailed answers and encourage prospective clients to share their thoughts and feelings. Open-ended questions will mostly begin with "What", "How", and "Why".
Here is an example of the difference between open and closed questions:
In the first case, potential customers will often limit themselves to a "yes" or "no" answer, and this will not move the conversation further. Whereas the more detailed response to the second question will help you lead the conversation in the right direction.
A comprehensive sales process will use both open and closed-ended questions, as closed-ended questions are useful for getting quick and meaningful answers, for example:
While closed-ended questions are used throughout the sales process, today, we are going to focus on open-ended sales queries, as when done right, they can bring significant benefits in the context of sales. Open-ended questions can demonstrate to potential clients your interest in their business, making them feel more engaged while gathering more insights that ultimately will help you close the sale.
It is important to collect as much information as possible in a short period of time, so ask additional questions that provoke detailed answers. After you have finished the conversation, you will be able to analyze their answers and identify key insights, so do not interrupt or assess the answers mid-conversation; focus on listening carefully and taking detailed notes. A great way to break the ice is to use jokes; this can help the prospective customer to relax, open up and provide you with more personal details.
Best practice, when it comes to asking open-ended questions, is to start with broader questions and move to more specific questions as the client gets more comfortable, for example:
Usually, the best sales reps are also excellent listeners; they are curious about other people, have great communication skills, and almost never interrogate. When a potential customer feels like you are genuinely interested in their concerns, they will feel more engaged and be more enthusiastic about sharing their issues with you. However, it is important to be genuine as fake curiosity has the opposite effect.
One of the most important things you can do is to practice active listening. Active listening is paraphrasing the clients' answers after they have responded, so you make sure that you understand their thought correctly, for example:
By practicing active listening, the potential client will feel that you are engaged and listening to them.
Sometimes a hanging pause provokes potential clients to tell you more. Use your intuition to let them think and give you more information. Knowing how to identify the moment when it is best to stay quiet comes with experience, but once you have mastered it, it can work wonders. If you don't listen to your client's answers, there is no point in asking open questions.
Regardless of how much your deadlines may burn, do not reduce the time you have to communicate with prospective clients; if you rush, you're depriving yourself of valuable information. The biggest mistake is to jump from one question to another without giving the customers enough time to answer the questions or tell you everything they want.
We have prepared a collection of open-ended question examples that you can use during your next call. A best practice is to use 2-3 questions from each category, choosing those that are most in line with your conversation goals.
These queries are great to make the customer talk:
Ask these questions if you want to know the shopping history and habits of a potential customer:
Asking these questions is a great way to nudge the conversation forward and to make sure you're not missing anything important:
These questions help to define the potential effect of your product:
These help you to unveil objections of your prospects:
It is necessary to carefully select proper questions and phrases for the end of any sales conversation. This is to encourage the potential buyer to make a decision, ideally one that is beneficial for you. To do it gracefully and unobtrusively manner, these are the most helpful and valuable questions:
It is important to remember that every question you ask should be personalized to the potential clients' or company's individual needs, along with the current stage of the sales process and the conversation context.
Ultimately, the success of your sales process will depend on how well you know your prospects. By asking the right questions at the right time, you will learn more about their challenges, which will help you find better solutions. Good questions can help you to establish mutual understanding with potential clients, increase trust and reduce objections. Start using some of the above questions in the sales process, evaluate your client's reaction and adjust your approach accordingly.
Enjoy your sales conversations and close as many deals as possible!
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The DialLink Editorial Team
The DialLink Editorial Team creates expert content to help businesses simplify communication, improve customer experience, and leverage AI-powered phone solutions. Drawing on deep experience in SaaS, cloud telephony, and small business and startup technology, the team delivers practical insights, product updates, and actionable advice for small business owners, startup founders, and customer service teams.
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