Greg Talks About a Ride-along Seller Not Clarifying

I was on a ride-along and the seller asked a solid question, but never followed up when the buyer's answer was vague (and it cost him big time)...check it out

SELLER: SO WHAT'S BEEN THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR YOU?"
Buyer: Things just haven’t really worked out the way we hoped with our last vendor. They just didn’t respond the way we needed them to.
SELLER: GOT IT... WE TAKE PRIDE IN OUR RESPONSE TIMES, WE'RE ALWAYS THE FASTEST
Buyer: Well, that was our problem with those guys...they were fast, when we needed them to be accurate…

Open mouth, insert foot.

After the call I asked the seller what he thought he could have done better. He said he should have also mentioned accuracy. That might have helped, but the bigger miss was never asking what “didn’t respond the way we needed them to” actually meant.

Something like: “When you say they didn’t respond the way you needed… talk more about that. What was missing?”

Managers — how often do you see your people hear something vague and jump straight to a feature instead of clarifying what it actually means?