Four Tips for Promoting Customer Engagement in Virtual Briefings

Mar 28, 2022

It has always been a challenge to get customers to actively participate in briefings. Our pivot to virtual briefings made it even more difficult. We are getting more acclimated to virtual meetings, but it can still be challenging to get the level of interaction we want in briefings. If you can get customers talking, they may divulge new opportunities for which you have a great solution. And if you can get them to share their objections as well as objectives you can take steps to address those concerns.

​​​​​​​Here are four ways to promote more interaction in your briefings:
Employees asking questions at an executive briefing training sessionEmployees asking questions at an executive briefing training session
  • The sooner you can get the customer talking, the more they will engage throughout the briefing. Find a way to involve customers in the first 5 or 10 minutes – introductions, an ice breaker, a thought-provoking question.
  • It is probably part of your process to ask Discussion Leaders to provide you with their slide deck in advance. But if you just ask for the deck, you’re reinforcing the idea that it’s all about them doing the talking. Ask Discussion Leaders for their deck and the three questions they plan to use to engage the customer. That’s why we call them Discussion Leaders!
  • Be sure that the Account Manager and Facilitator go into the briefing with pre-planned, intentional, open-ended questions they want to pose to the customer for each topic on the agenda.  Thinking ahead and planning these questions is key to “spontaneously” promoting conversation.
  • In the case of a customer who is not forthcoming or engaging in conversation, start with asking closed ended yes/no questions. There’s a lower barrier to responding to these types of “validation” questions and it may get the ball rolling.

To learn more about how to develop a strategic question library and drive interaction, check out our Facilitation Skills workshop.