I was taught that by a sales guy. Never ask a yes/no question. Don't ask "Are you satisfied with your current provider?" rather "What do you like/dislike about your current provider?". The wrong answer to a yes/no question ends the conversation.
In a job I had as a student, I had to sell a product over the phone. My boss told me to ask a couple of obvious leading questions first. The point was to get the customer to say „yes“ a couple of times, before trying to sell the product.
I was very ineffective and got fired after a week.
I read a book recently suggesting the opposite. That it's much more effective to get them to say No right out of the gate. People feel like they are in control when they say "No."
Yes there's a psychological principle at work there, when you ask a serious of "softball" questions that are intended to get the respondent to agree, blatantly so, the respondent's "radar goes up", so to speak.
I've heard someone give this approach -- and its unintended consequence -- a name, but currently it escapes me. And yes, the gentlemen I'm thinking of was in sales, technical sales actually.
