I failed an exam by “knowing”

Hi there,

There’s a memory from my school days that I still think about.

I was in 4th standard, preparing for an English exam.
Our teacher was sitting with us, writing down possible exam questions.

Naturally, we got curious.

We started peeking.

Slowly, quietly, we noted down around 10 questions we thought might come in the exam.

We felt clever.
Like we had figured out the system.

Then the teacher noticed.

He didn’t shout.
He didn’t get angry.

He just calmly took his pen and crossed out every single question we had seen.

Then he said,
“I’m changing all the questions.”

We believed him.

That’s the power of authority.
When someone in charge says something, you don’t question it.

So what did we do?

We completely ignored those 10 questions.
We studied everything else.
New chapters.
Other topics.
Anything except what we had already seen.

We felt confident.

Then exam day came.

And guess what?

Those same 10 questions appeared.

Every. Single. One.

We hadn’t studied them.
And we messed up the exam.

The teacher didn’t change the questions.
He changed what we thought he would do.

Customers do the same thing.

They don’t tell you what they’re thinking.

They don’t explain why they’re confused.
They don’t say why they didn’t buy.

They just:

And you’re left guessing.

You think:

But most of the time, that’s not the real reason.

Maybe they were confused.
Maybe a key question wasn’t answered.
Maybe something felt risky.

Like my teacher, customers don’t explain.
They act.

And if you assume the wrong reason, you lose money.

Most businesses focus on bringing traffic.

Ads.
Landing pages.
Nice-looking copy.

But the moment a customer lands on the site… silence.

No one knows:

Every visitor who leaves without buying is a question mark.

And wrong assumptions are expensive.

One day, I thought—
“What if I stop guessing?”

“What if I just ask them?”

So I added a live AI chatbot to the website.

Not for support.
Not for FAQs.

But to listen.

When people type in a chatbot, they’re honest.

They’re not trying to sound professional.
They’re not under pressure.
They just ask what they actually want to know.

That’s real data.

After a few weeks, patterns started showing up.

Same questions.
Again and again.

These weren’t random questions.

These were the reasons people weren’t buying.

This is like watching someone use your website silently.

I use Microsoft Clarity.

You can see:

You’ll notice confusion instantly.

What feels obvious to you may be confusing to them.

That gap is where sales are lost.

This catches people right before they leave.

A small question pops up:
“Before you go, what was missing?”

Or:
“Are you finding what you’re looking for?”

I haven’t used this deeply yet, but the idea is solid.

If they answer → insight.
If they don’t → also insight.

It means your site takes too much effort to understand.

This changed everything for me.

Every chat is saved.
Every question is visible.

Things like:

When the same question appears 10–15 times, that’s a signal.

Something isn’t clear on your site.

So you fix it.

And suddenly, those questions disappear.

People don’t always tell you what they’re thinking.

They show it.

My teacher didn’t explain.
He acted.

We believed the action and ignored the truth.

Customers do the same.

They don’t say:

They just leave.

Your job is to understand why—before they’re gone.

Pick one tool. Just one.

Run it for two weeks.

Look for patterns.
Spot confusion.
Fix it.

You don’t need to read minds.

Your customers are already talking.

You just need to listen. 👀

Quick question—if one customer left your website today,
what do you think stopped them?
Hit reply and let me know.

-Agnel John D