Customer terminology in requirements and discovery artifacts
Key Takeaway
Ask what each customer term means, then use those same terms in your conversations, business requirements, and process maps.
Discovery depends on understanding what a customer means, not just the words they use. A consultant learns the customer's own terms, confirms what each one means, and uses those terms in requirements and process maps so the customer's people can read and challenge them. Financial services needs extra care, because everyday words like account, client, and household have specific meanings in Agentforce Financial Services.
How to work with the customer's terms
Customer conversations include lingo specific to the customer's business. Follow these steps when you hear a term you don't know:
- Pause the discussion and ask for the term's definition.
- Start using that term yourself as soon as possible.
- Use the customer's language when you verify what they are saying or asking for.
- Write business requirements in the customer's language.
Verifying in the customer's own language shows real commitment to understanding their business. Using their words also builds trust and keeps things from getting lost in translation.
When requirements are written in the customer's language, anyone on the customer's side can pick up a requirement and understand right away what it asks for. Those readers can then challenge a requirement and join the discussion without adding misunderstandings.
During a discovery workshop at a regional bank, a branch manager says, "Any overdraft request over $5,000 goes to the Friday desk." The consultant pauses and asks, "What is the Friday desk?" The manager explains that the Friday desk is a small team that reviews large overdraft requests every Friday. From then on, the consultant uses the same term in follow-up questions, such as "How many requests reach the Friday desk in a typical week?" The written requirement uses it too: "As a branch manager, I want overdraft requests over $5,000 sent to the Friday desk." Any branch employee who reads that requirement knows exactly what it asks for.