Inquisitiveness is essential for developing good listening skills that benefit the consumer. When you're really interested in your client's thoughts, desires, and expectations, you'll discover that your relationship with the consumer improves.
Hearing is one thing, but listening is another. Listening is a passive activity. As soon as someone becomes a bore, people tend to stop what they're doing and look away. Customers and prospects like it when salespeople actively listen to what they have to say.
Listening is a core competency of every organization that strives to put its customers first. It's all about listening to your customers and finding out what they like and what they don't like so that you can enhance your product.
It's a skill that must be continually improved upon. What customers hear becomes less repetitive and more relevant when salespeople pay more attention to what they hear. Develop the skill of listening so that you can communicate more effectively with your target audience and with your internal customer experience team.
Take a look at the following five recommendations to discover how to enhance active listening for better customer service.
Less 'Me' more 'You' Listening
Being self-aware makes it simple to fool yourself into believing you are paying attention when you are not. When you're thinking about what to say next, you're not paying attention to the consumer.
There is a good chance that you are preoccupied with your own agenda if you find yourself becoming bored or feeling driven to stop the conversation. In other words, if you're in a hurry to repair the problem, you're probably more concerned with servicing yourself than the consumer.
The Personal Touch Makes a Big Difference
We live in an era characterized by ubiquitous use of acronyms, slang, and other shorthand in our correspondence. A return to formal communication in the workplace, however, is a wise investment. By not paying attention carefully, you put yourself and others at danger of being misunderstood.
You may reassure your consumer that you genuinely understand him/her if you have a little patience. These days, the ability to differentiate your customer service and keep customers coming back to your firm rather than others may be really significant. Take a moment to think on your finest customer service experiences. You'll realize that nothing beats feeling heard and receiving the assistance you need in a quick and pleasant manner.
You'll have more fun at work and your clients will have a better experience with your company if you increase your interest while dealing with them. It is at this period that you will be able to acquire a sixth instinct for your clients' requirements, anticipate them, and continually please them.
Ask Follow-Up Questions
Asking follow-up questions shows that you're paying attention to what the other person has to say. This demonstrates that you are paying close attention to what they are saying and are capable of asking probing questions.
Inquiries such as "Can you elaborate on what it is that you mean by X?" and "How can we address the issue X that you mentioned?" are good examples of this sort of question-and-answer style.
Recap for them to feel heard
Replaying the other person's words back to them often tends to be associated with the preceding point's discussion. In addition to showing you're paying much attention to what they're saying, this also assures that you and the speaker are on the same wavelength about what they're trying to get through.
The following are some examples of possible interview questions: "You indicated that you greatly enjoy X product. In our assortment, would you say that it's your favorite item? Or, "So, what do you think we should do to make X more accessible?".
Wait Until Later to Judge
When it comes to making judgments about the world, we humans are notoriously snobbish. We can't help it, since our brains analyze the reality around us in this way.. To improve your listening skills, you should strive to put aside your natural tendency to judge and instead focus on listening.
As a result, you will be able to resist leaping to conclusions or seeming defensive, and instead accept the criticism as it comes.
Final Thought: The first step in improving your customer experience (CX) is to improve your listening skills. It is possible to improve the customer experience and the bottom line by using these five methods and working more closely with your CX team.
-Blog written by Vinit Singh Baghel
