Assumptive language is the same thing as a flight attendant getting on the loudspeaker and telling passengers that we might hit a few bumps of turbulence in our descent. Think of her tone of voice when she says this: calm, cool, and collected. Like it happens all the time. What’s the result? Everyone stays calm and fastens their seat belt as they’re told.
If the flight attendant got on the speaker and sounded nervous like, “Um, okay, I don’t want to alarm anyone (voice audibly shaking) but the pilot said there’s a lot of turbulence (talking fast) and everyone needs to fasten their seat belts right now.” Then what would the passengers do? People would start to stand up, look around nervously at what everyone else is doing, look out the windows to try and see what will cause the turbulence, get worried, maybe start asking for parachutes—everything except for staying calm and quiet and fastening their seat belts.
Same thing on the credit card screen during a sales call. If you use assumptive language and “normalize” the situation like, oh this happens all the time. I collected three credit cards this morning already. This is what other clients do to get their product/service started. Then the client feels like they’re weird if they don’t, not the other way around.
Saying something like, “So the only thing we have left is setting up your payment details (talking confident and slow) and then I’ll have the certificate of insurance sent right over (brief pause), I’m ready when you are.” Short, succinct, almost like you’re yawning, but still maintaining sincerity—just not putting any additional stress on what is, in reality, the most stressful part of the sales encounter for both parties.