I think it's also important to take into account the knowledge level of the person you're asking the question to. I often find, for example, that by the time I need to contact some sort of support person for an online or business transaction, I've exhausted most things they're generally used to, and tend to have a reasonably complex issue. You would think that "stating your understanding" would work well there, as it would get you past rehashing all the things you've already tried, but I find it usually backfires. More often it just throws the person off and you end up getting confusion and/or guesses presented as fact.

So I guess I would generalize that step, so it's more like, "establish both parties' understanding," which you can do by getting into your own understanding more gradually, and gauging the responses.