Tips to Improve Listening Skills for Better Customer Interaction
Listening is one of the most important aspects of customer relations. It requires patience and a slight tinge of humility so that the person that you are interacting with feels comfortable in explaining his or her issue or his or her solution to the problem at hand.
We have developed some interesting and easy-to-get tips for you to go through. Our team of analysts has conducted thorough online research regarding the internet market of the United States. After careful analyses, we have singled out Spectrum as one of the leading brands in terms of customer service. Therefore, we have decided to take Spectrum Customer Service as a benchmark of our examples.
Speed is the Enemy of Good Listening
Where we stress that call center employees should not allow the call to cross a certain mark and present a solution to the issue quickly. We also stress that the customer care representative judges the tone and speed of understanding of the customer on the other end of the call. At the end of the day, the goal of the customer care representative is to get the message across appropriately.
We have used reviews from customers and customer care representatives from Spectrum customer service to bring about an analysis of what goes on between a representative and the person calling. Some callers have suggested that the representative is often seen rushing through a call regardless of how appropriately the communication has been between the two. However, some representatives have claimed that many customers that have placed calls try to push the customer care representative to hurry or rush with a solution to their problem. This urgency from both the customer and the representative may end up being a wastage of time for both as the caller may not get the appropriate guidance as he or she wishes and simultaneously, the customer care representative may feel agitated as to not being able to convey his or her message properly.
Stay Focused
You need to be able to concentrate on exactly what the topic of discussion is and avoid lingering thoughts that may enter your head. Some of the most common causes of distractions are surrounding noises, colleagues sitting near to you, family, kids, and external noises. What you could do at the office is try and stop people from shouting across the place to convey their messages.
Detect Emotions
This is a skill that is not that easy to come by, rather it is highly dependent upon the person in question that they can sense the level of tension and emotion that exist in a caller’s voice. Even if you are not able to judge a person or their circumstances via their voice, it would be wise to check their speech and the type of words that they using.
If the customer that you are on call with comes off as worried, then try your best to show virtues of empathy so that the person could be handled or treated appropriately.
Frequently Ask Questions
One of the best strategies to becoming a person with great communication skills is to ask the other person lots of questions. These questions need to be accurate and should always be directed towards attaining more information regarding the topic under discussion.
Asking questions is also a great way of getting to know exactly what the concern of the customer is so that the solution that you would, later on, present the customer with is also an accurate one.
Say it Again
We know that it can become irritating after a while when the other person continuously asks for things to be repeated. However, there is more shame in getting things mixed up or getting things all jumbled up so one should never shy away from asking the other person to repeat what they had just said.
Be Aware of the Barriers to Listening
There exist certain barriers to listening in each individual. These are developed over time and are mainly focused on the personality of the individual at hand. One of the most prominent issues that take place is when an individual believes that he or she either knows more about a certain issue rather than a professional whose main job lies in the relevant industry or market.
Similarly, a cause for frustration on the end of the customer maybe when a representative is not willing to listen to the full issue, rather puts in maximum effort to provide wrong solutions to the problem as quickly as he or she can. This could frustrate the customer.
One of the worst communication barriers is when a person, regardless of him or her being a customer or a customer care representative waits for the moment when the other person would take a slight break in their speech and then jump in with whatever they wanted to say. DON’T DO THAT!
