"Call me next quarter" sounds like a polite no, and sometimes it is. Sometimes it hides a real event. This fictional call shows a seller who asks, makes one mistake and recovers.
Fictional practice call. The seller and the buyer are invented. This is not a recording of a real call or a real customer.
Setup
A seller at a facilities-management software company follows up after a short demo with a facilities manager. She likes the product but says it is not a priority until next quarter. The goal is to learn whether the delay is real and to agree the smallest useful next step.
Rubric focus: Objection handling, Empathy, Responsiveness to the customer, Pressure management, Call control, Next step.
How to use this page
Read the transcript once for the story. Then read it again with the notes and, before each note, decide what you would have said. Notes marked Worked are worth copying in your own words, not word for word. Notes marked Improve point to a line you can rewrite and say aloud. The scorecard groups what you saw under the criteria DIRI AI uses in its reports, so you can pick one criterion to practise next. Pick one, not six. The call is short on purpose: it shows one pattern clearly, and a real call will not follow it line for line.
Transcript with notes
1. Buyer: “It looks fine, honestly. But it's not a priority until next quarter. Call me then.”
2. Seller: “Understood, and thank you for being straight with me. May I ask what has to happen before it becomes a priority?”
- Worked: Thanks her, then asks a question instead of arguing with the delay.
3. Buyer: “We have the building audit in March. Everything waits for that.”
4. Seller: “An audit is a lot of work. But if you decide this week, I can offer a discount that ends on Friday.”
- Improve: A deadline appears out of nowhere and ignores the reason she just gave. An invented Friday costs trust.
5. Buyer: “I don't care about Friday. I said March.”
6. Seller: “You did, and I'm sorry. Let me go back. What will the audit decide that touches this?”
- Worked: Admits the lapse in one sentence and returns to her reason.
7. Buyer: “Whether we keep the second site. If we close it, this is half the size.”
8. Seller: “So deciding now could mean buying the wrong size. Would a one-page note with both sizes side by side help you use it after the audit?”
- Worked: Turns the delay into a shared fact and offers something that fits her timeline.
9. Buyer: “That would actually help.”
10. Seller: “I'll send it this week. May I ring in the second week of March, after the audit, and not before?”
- Worked: The next step is tied to her event, not to the seller's calendar.
11. Buyer: “Yes. Ask for me directly.”
Scorecard
An illustrative reading of this call against the criteria on How we score.
| Criterion | 0 to 100 | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Objection handling | 70 | Asks what sits behind the delay; line 4 dips, line 6 recovers. |
| Empathy | 65 | Acknowledges her situation, though line 4 skips past it. |
| Responsiveness to the customer | 60 | Line 4 ignores what she just said; lines 6 and 8 repair it. |
| Pressure management | 45 | The Friday deadline is pressure she did not ask for. |
| Call control | 80 | Steers back to her reason without arguing. |
| Next step | 90 | Dated to her event, with a useful deliverable. |
Each criterion is shown from 0 to 100, as in a report. No total is printed: a real total is built by rules that read the transcript, not by averaging criteria, so adding up this table would mislead. A real report may read the same call differently.
What to take from this call
- Ask what has to happen before the topic becomes a priority. Do not argue with the delay.
- A deadline you invented costs more trust than the delay costs you.
- Tie the next step to the buyer's event, and give them something useful to hold until then.
Exercise
Ten minutes, one prepared scenario.
- Write the question that asks what has to happen before the topic becomes a priority. Say it aloud twice.
- Replace line 4 with a reply that uses the reason the buyer gave (here: "March").
- Run the prepared scenario. At the end, check the next step: does it have a date tied to the buyer's event?
- Strike every deadline you invented and keep only the ones the buyer owns.
Closest prepared scenario: a decision that keeps getting postponed.
Practise it out loud. The Free plan covers 3 voice calls a month, up to 5 minutes each; see pricing for current terms.