CUSTOMER CARE: Deep Listening, Hearing, and Understanding
Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 02:05PM By David Lazear
In your customer care or care for your leads and business partners, how often have you thought you clearly communicated something to them, and you thought they were listening and that they understood, only to be surprised later to find that they seemed to miss the whole intent of your communication?
Hearing others’ words is one thing. Hearing and listening to what they are saying is an entirely different matter. And understanding the meaning of their words is a highly developed skill that cannot be assumed simply because one has heard and listened.
There may be no single customer care skill that is more important than deep listening, hearing, and understanding. This will shape your customer experience more than any thing else you might do!
There are at least three situations that often challenge our listening, hearing, and understanding abilities: listening when you disagree, listening when their communication is confusing, and listening in a meeting.
Following are three exercises to help you build your own customer care skills which are also the skills needed to care for leads, prospects, business partners and/or your business team.
The exercises deal with several levels of the hearing, listening, and understanding process in everyday situations of human relating.
Listening When You Disagree
A whole world of inner voices begins making such comments as, “I can’t believe she could really believe that! I thought she was an intelligent person.” Or we start planning our rebuttal; we look for flaws in their logic or places where they are contradicting themselves. Sometimes derogatory thoughts come to us: “Why does she wear her hair like that? It surely doesn’t flatter her.”
The upshot of this is that we have basically stopped listening. We are missing what the other person is saying because our own mind chatter drowns it out. We’ve got to train ourselves to listen.
CUSTOMER CARE EXERCISE: Listening When You Disagree
Place yourself in a customer care situation (or one with a lead or business partner) where you strongly disagree with the viewpoint of another person or other persons. Your goal is to understand his/her perspective thoroughly. It may be a conversation over a political issue, a religious belief, or something happening in the community.
1. Ask the other person to explain his/her viewpoint to you. Listen as deeply as you can to what they are saying, trying to understand where they are coming from. Consciously practice cutting off the mind chatter.
2. When the person has finished, ask questions to clarify, but do not state your opinions. Remember, understanding is not the same as agreeing. Following are some questions to try, but be careful not to ask them in an argumentative way:
- Who are some people who have influenced your thinking on this issue?
What experiences in your life have led to your current viewpoint?
What are the most common arguments against your viewpoint and how do you answer them?
Are there any books or articles you would recommend that would help me understand your position more fully?
3. See if you can paraphrase what the other person has said and what his viewpoint on the issue is. Ask him to interrupt you and correct you if you have not fully understood what he was saying. At the end of the conversation, thank the person for sharing his views with you.
As soon as you can after the conversation, reflect (even write) on how your own perspective has been informed as a result of the conversation.
Listening When the Message Is Confusing
Often when during our customer care and our communications with our leads, prospects, and business partners the messages we are getting are confusing or seem to be contradictory. We’ll often dismiss their thoughts and feelings simply because we couldn’t make sense out them. Again, this is a great occasion to train ourselves to listen!
During the next month whenever you are communicating with someone and you feel the message is unclear, you feel you are hearing contradictory information, you don’t understand, or you feel the need to grasp the larger context.
1. As the person is talking, turn off your mind chatter. Listen as fully and deeply as you can, even though the communication is confusing (make mental notes to yourself about what parts are clear and what is confusing).
Do not accuse the other person of sending a confusing message. Do not look confused or communicate distress.
2. When the other person has finished a statement, begin by saying, “I’m not sure I understand what you just said. What I heard you say was. . .” and repeat as accurately as you can what you heard.
3. Ask the person if you have heard correctly. If not, ask her to repeat the message. Note what parts of your confusion are cleared up. Zero in on those parts that are still confusing using the following process:
- In your own mind, isolate the confusing and contradictory parts.
In a non-accusatory way, try to explain what is confusing or what seems contradictory, asking the other person to help you understand.
After the explanation, paraphrase what you heard and ask for confirmation or correction.
In your own mind assess how the explanation has helped: What is still confusing? What still seems contradictory?
In the same fashion, continue to work on gaiing clarity; that is, explain your confusion, ask the other to explain, paraphrase what you heard, and reassess your level of clarity or confusion.
Listening In A Meeting
How often have you been sitting in a meeting and suddenly you’re no longer there? You’re off planning what you’re going to do after work, or you’re thinking about some problem you could be working on if you weren’t in this “so and so” meeting, or you’re thinking about a TV show you watched last night. Part of working and learning with others involves training ourselves to stay focused and to listen in this kind of situation.
During the coming month, every time you are in a meeting (even if it’s a customer care conference call!) take notes. Set up three columns on your note page: column 1 is for the content (what is being said); column 2 is for who said it and how they said it; and column 3 is for your observations of how this contribution affects others in the group. Include your contributions. (Note: You may not have an entry in every column for every comment.)
1. As in the previous exercises, practice cutting off your mind chatter so that you can deeply listen, hear, and understand the process that is happening. You’ll likely need to use the skills of the previous two exercises—namely, listening when you disagree and listening when there is confusion—to help you be successful in this situation.
2. After the meeting, carefully analyze your notes, trying to grasp the complex interpersonal dynamics that were involved in the meeting. Ask yourself the following questions, trying simply to understand these dynamics:
- Look at column 1. What were the recurring themes of the meeting? What points were made several times, maybe in different ways?
Look at columns 2 and 3. Who were the key participants in the meeting? Why do you feel they were key?
Reflect on column 3. Chart the mood shifts of the meeting. What was the overall mood of the meeting?
When were people effectively communicating with one another?
When were they not communicating?
If you were to replay this meeting, what would make the communication more effective and affective?
When you develop the skills of deep listening and hearing you’ll discover that your whole approach to customer care is transformed. You’ll find a new depth in your communication with customers, leads, and your business team, new levels of personal connection with them, and you’ll have a new respect for their opinions and feelings.
This will also change you. As you genuinely open yourself to others your own life will be enriched, your perspectives broaden, and your appreciation for others enhanced. This is at the heart of relationship and attraction marketing - giving without want and yet receiving without asking!
About the author:
David Lazear is a mentor and coach for mentors, coaches, and trainers. He is an associate of Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg at the Renegade University and Renegade Professional.
David has written some 15 books and created numerous resources for home business entrepreneurs, coaches, and trainers. His expertise is training others in how to assess and address other’s “learning profile” using the research on “multiple intelligences” (a.k.a. The 8 Kinds of Smart). For more information please go to his website at Home Business Smarts.
David Lazear teaches how to turbo-charge any mentoring, coaching, and training you provide so you Reach Everyone, Everytime – Guaranteed!
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