Customer Service Tips

Customer Service Training:
Customer Service 101: How to Listen Effectively

No matter what business you are in, you need to develop great listening skills. Whether you are the CEO of a company or a technician at a dealership, you ability to listen effectively will impact how good you are at greeting.

Here are simple steps to improve your listening skills:

1. Listen with your ears, eyes, heart and mind
If you listen with all your senses you will be able to get the full message that is being sent. With you ears you should listen to the words that are being said. With your eyes you are going to read the body language of the person who is taking to you. Body language is a more powerful communicator that words. Look for clues such as crossed arms, tension in shoulders and facial expressions to understand the speaker’s real feelings. With your heart you should listen for the emotional content of the message through the tone of your customers voice.. This is usually conveyed with tone of voice. And with your mind listen for what is not being spoken.

2. Listen with intention
As Stephen Covey says "Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply." How often in the middle of a listening do you find yourself thinking about how you are going to respond to the speaker? The minute you are formulating your response you are not listening effectively. Although it is human nature to want to respond, wait until you have listened to the speaker’s entire message.

3. Don’t interrupt
Not only is it rude to interrupt, it keeps you from fully understanding what the speaker is trying to say to you. When you are excited it is easy to barge in with your reply. The best way to combat this is to take a breath before responding. It gives you time to make sure the speaker is finished with what they are saying.

4. Stay focused
There is often so much “noise” around us that we are unable to keep our focus. TV’s, radios, computers and other people can distract us from our listening. But also we can be distracted by all the visual noise around us. If you have trouble staying focused while listening, you’ll need to create a calmer environment. Find a quiet space and remove the mess from your desk.

We live very busy lives and we have taken to multitask in order to get everything done that needs to be done. However, multitasking gets in the way of effective listening. If you are reading email, or doing any other task you are cannot listen fully.

5. Take notes
One of the best ways to listen effectively is to take notes. Always ask the speaker if it is ok to write a few notes to help you remember key points. Now, this doesn’t mean that you should write non-stop during your conversation. Rather, write down a few key phrases or words that have meaning.

6. Confirm your understanding
Sometimes we think we know what the other person is saying to us. Even we both speak the same language we can misunderstand the meaning and nuance of the speakers words. If you confirm what you are hearing is what the speaker was intending, you can make sure that you are really engaged with their needs.

7. Spend more time listening than talking
Even when greeting your customer, you need to spend more time listening. This allows the customer to feel valued and welcomed.

8. Show interest in what the speaker is saying
When you are actively listening you need to make sure your customer feels that you are engaged with what they are saying. Some people can listen effectively while not maintaining eye contact, but if the customer doesn’t feel listened to than it doesn’t really count. So you need to either nod, make sounds of understanding: “ah, yes, I see,” or find some other way through body language to help the customer understand that you are fully engaged with what they are saying.