I just got off of a productive and inspiring video conference with a new client. I’ll spend this afternoon, and much of this week developing a fully customized training class for this company. In two months, I’ll fly out to Montreal to facilitate the workshop.

When I sit down to create a custom course for my clients, the first question I ask is, “What’s your biggest problem with customer interactions?” And then I get to work on how to fix that problem.

Asking my clients what their single most significant challenge is, forces them to hone in on what keeps them up at night, and it tells me exactly where to focus in my workshop. I follow this question up with ten or twelve other questions that help me to deliver precisely on my customer’s objectives for my training.

As I sit here preparing to start the design process for my client, I got to thinking, what if some of the questions I ask my clients for workshop prep might help you make improvements in your customer interactions. I imagine my questions will at least get you to fiercely focus on the most urgent issues and get you going in the right direction. They’ve never failed me.

So, here are some of the diagnostic questions I ask my clients to help me understand and fix their most pressing issues in customer interactions.