Ask clarifying questions

31 Oct, 2025

When I worked in customer support, we had a rule to always ask clarifying questions. This helped us truly understand what problem the customer was trying to solve.

Getting on the same page was important. It meant we didn't waste any effort doing work that didn't matter.

When I transitioned to business operations, I noticed that a lot of internal communications were based on assumptions.

I think this tendency stems from familiarity. We know our colleagues and internal systems better than customers, so we make assumptions based on:

1. We assume we understand the request because of our familiarity.
2. We're embarrassed to ask. The question seems simple, and we don't want to admit we don't know the answer.
3. We fear looking bad. We worry that admitting we lack information will reflect poorly on us, especially when the request comes from someone higher up.

We might stare at the ask for bit, and if there's any inkling that we know, we'll run with that and then work on what we think the right solution is.

Until we send off the finished work, only to find out we were doing the wrong thing because of a wrong assumption.

Instead of letting assumptions waste time, it's okay to send an extra message to ask for clarification.

The key is to ask a clarifying question while showing the person exactly what details you need. Here are a few examples:

Example 1

I need the Q3 churn numbers for the executive review by 3 PM.

• Before: I'll get that to you ASAP.
• After: Got it. To make sure I pull the right data, should I use the Q3 Fiscal Year definition, and are you looking for the total revenue churn figure, or just the user count?

Example 2

We need to retire the old 'Billing Status' field on the customer record. Can you handle that today?

• Before: Sounds good. I'll delete that immediately and will let you know when it's done.
• After: Understood. To confirm, does retiring it mean permanently deleting it or archiving it?

Example 3

Grant all the new partners 'full access' to the CRM data portal right away—they start in 30 minutes.

• Before: Done. They all have admin access now.
• After: Access granted to the portal. To confirm the security level, should I grant Viewer/Read-Only access, or do they need Editor/Admin rights to make changes? I'll default to Viewer until confirmed.

Even a quick "Can you clarify the details?" can save a lot of wasted time and effort.

#work