Listening differs from hearing. Hearing is passive. Listening is a learned skill — it’s active. People remember only about 25% of what they hear, as opposed to 85% of what they actively listen to.
In order to be effective in retaining customers, you need to actively listen to their needs, expectations, and complaints. Since so much about communication isn’t immediately clear, we need to actively listen and ask gentle, probing questions to ensure clear understanding. Successful agencies employ people who are excellent listeners — they genuinely care.
Signs that a person truly cares about customers are evident in the hiring process. For instance, when the candidate completes an employment application, do they answer all the questions neatly and clearly? When you ask a question, do they answer it directly or ask for clarification? When you speak with a job candidate on the telephone, do you sense you have their undivided attention? During the entire hiring process, do they ask you and others follow-up questions? Do they want to know more?
Where do people learn to listen? Schools haven’t yet recognized the need for students to become good listeners. In fact, I know of only two colleges that offer courses on listening. Listening is the 'receiving' component of communication and consists of:
- Receiving information through your ears (and eyes)
- Giving meaning to that information
- Deciding what you think (or feel) about that information
- Responding to what you hear
Our working life is filled with listening activities, such as attending meetings and seminars, listening to customers’ questions, giving and receiving instructions, interviewing people, listening to colleagues’ questions, making decisions based on verbal information, selling or marketing a product or service, managing people, and interacting with carriers. Listening pays off handsomely for everyone. Given the importance of listening and the lack of training in developing that skill, it’s important to know that listening can:
- Increase your income. If you listen carefully to your customers, you’ll detect the best opportunities to ask for referrals.
- Lessen stress on the job. Defusing an angry customer by resolving issues in a positive manner will markedly reduce your stress.
- Improve your agency’s profits. If you listen to your customers carefully and ask probing questions, you’ll uncover additional cross-selling opportunities for your products and services.
- Make you more 'promotable.' When you ask questions to ensure that you understand the customer’s request you’ll avoid redoing work, which increases your efficiency and readies you for the next step in your agency.
- Increase your job satisfaction. When you can easily resolve problems for both internal and external customers, you’ll enjoy your job more.
- Improve your ability to solve problems. By listening actively, you’ll have more information, increasing your options for resolving a customer’s particular problem.
- Keep you aware of what’s going on in your organization. Since your listening skills will be sharper, you’ll be more knowledgeable about what’s going on in your organization. You’ll experience fewer surprises.
So how do you become a trained listener? Here are some key tips to set you on the path of learning this invaluable skill.
1. Take notes. Each time you interact with a client, either on the phone or in person, chances are you’re taking notes. Doing this actually helps increase memory retention. Expand this activity by keeping a small notepad and pen with you to jot down salient points. Don’t be overly concerned with neatness. Focus on key phrases, active verbs, and feelings.
2. Listen. Then restate what you heard. Repeat what you think you heard, in your own words.
3. Become an active listener. Active listening is a learned skill that takes practice. To listen actively, focus on the customer and listen for the content of the message carefully. Don’t become distracted by how customers express themselves. Focus on what they’re saying. Active listening requires desire, discipline, interest, and concentration. Ask questions, show interest, express concern, and pay attention.
4. Be present. In other words, don’t feign attention. Guard against the tendency to daydream or to allow your mind to wander. Some people daydream up to 50% of the time when they’re not engaged in conversation.
5. Anticipate excellence. You’ll receive good information more often when you expect to receive it. However, you can facilitate information gathering by asking clear, open-ended questions. 'Brainpower' is the power of our expectations.
6. Become a 'whole body' listener. Whether you’re in a face-to-face meeting, on the phone, or reading written correspondence, listen with your ears, eyes, and heart. If you’re on the phone with a customer convey a positive, encouraging attitude. Sit in a comfortable position, as if the customer were sitting before you. Smile into the telephone. Tune into the customer’s feelings and ignore or eliminate distractions.
7. Build rapport by 'pacing' the speaker. Match the customer’s pace, rate, and volume of speech, vocabulary, and breathing. Approximate the customer’s words, phrases, expressions, and voice patterns.
8. Control your emotional 'hot buttons.' There are certain types of people or situations that can 'push your buttons.' The skilled listener gets to the real message and ignores such superficial distractions as people who use bad grammar, pushy people, whiny people, or dictatorial people.
9. Control distractions. Distractions provide novelty, variety, and intensity that can take your focus away from the customer. For example, if you have customers who are particularly soft spoken, difficult, or talkative take the call in a private setting — close your door so you can concentrate more easily on what the customer is saying.
10. Listening is a gift: give generously. As you become an active listener give more to your customers, specifically your time and attention. Listening is an acknowledgment of caring. It’s a potent retention tool. Customers want you to care about and acknowledge them. This is a powerful human need. As you become a better listener, you’ll most likely find your job becoming more enriching.
You’ll become more successful. You’ll interact with everyone more deeply. You’ll have more information and you’ll be more involved and engaged. You’ll see new and innovative opportunities and solutions in a rapidly changing marketplace. Isn’t that what your customers expect?