Are you listening?

The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent…

How do you know what your customer needs or wants are? Do you know why the customer is after your service?

To be great listener you need to be a good questioner, otherwise you won’t be able to meet the needs of your customer.

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In order to clarify your customers’ needs and preferences accurately, you need to do the following with every internal and external customer:

• Acknowledge them

• Ask appropriate questions

• Actively listen

• Show empathy

• Use reassurance

• Confirm their needs or wants

When actively listening:

• Give the customer your full attention

• Let your customer do at least 75 percent of the talking

• Accept what the customer is saying

• Think about things from the customer’s point of view

• Understand the customer’s feeling from their “emotive words”

The EAR model is a useful tool for effective listening:

E – EXPLORE using open-ended questions such as “what” and “how”

A – ACKNOWLEDGE by paraphrasing what you think the message was

R – RESPOND appropriately

Recent studies have shown that people who listen are thought to be more attractive, smarter and better looking than people who spend most of their time talking…I hear your silence!

So hopefully you have picked up a few tips on active listening. Practice is the key point here, learning to keep one’s mouth shut when you are busting to share some information is one of life’s greatest achievements- I am yet to conquer this!

However, I love to listen to our customers. We continually learn so much about their businesses and their needs. I wouldn’t swap jobs for the world! If you would like to be listened to and feel the need to fill any gaps in your business through training and education please give my team a call and book in your discovery session with me. One last quote: –

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said,” – P. Drucker