When dealing with customers, we all know that one of the most important skills is listening. But, do we know how to listen?
We all think that we listen to our customers but in reality, we usually pretend to listen. Here are a few examples of pretend listening.
- Thinking about your response
- Wondering how this will impact your work/business
- Feeling hurt by the criticism
- Interpreting what’s being said through your assumptions
- Using only our ears to listen.
All our lives, we’ve been trained (albeit indirectly) to make listening about us. But to really listen, we need to put ego aside and open ourselves up to the other person. It’s a vulnerable position but one that is very important if we really want to listen and learn.
Anthropologist’s View on Listening
Recently,
href=”http://www.twitter.com/chris_bailey” target=”_blank”>Chris Bailey published a post called
href=”http://www.baileyworkplay.com/2010/06/listening-to-what-isnt-said/” target=”_blank”>Listening to What Isn’t Said. Chris is an anthropologist who works in customer experience design and his post is definitely worth reading.
In his post, he gives us five simple ways to listen to what is not said.
- Shut Up
- Be Naive
- Get Curious
- Show Me
- Record It
Click on the link up there to get the details; it really is worth the read.
Hearing What Isn’t Said
What isn’t said is often much more important that what is. It defines the context and the subtext to what is really meant.
To really listen to our customers, we need to drop our ego. This isn’t easy; especially when we’re fully invested in what we do. But it’s a prerequisite.
Listening is not about you. It’s all about the other person, your customer.
Everyone in your organization needs to learn how to honestly and completely listen to customers (and remember the internal customers).
If you really don’t have a lot of money to invest and can only do one thing to improve your customer service, this is one important skill that needs to be learned. Learning to really listen can and will have a positive effect on the customer experience.
So go ahead, read Chris’ post, make a little card with the five ways to really listen, get every one to read the post and stick the card to their monitor. And, then follow-up! Remind your people to really listen every chance you get; if you only do it once, they’ll think it’s your latest fad (they’ll be right) and will forget it.
So what do you think? Do you have any listening tips?
Cheers
Eric
