Customer service; active listening

If you work in customer service, we are pretty sure that you already know that the little things can make a big difference. Clients are humans and they have feelings, so you need to keep in mind the communication problems that might arise, but also the emotions, which will become quite important.

Therefore, issues such as active listening are important. Active listening is the act of mindfully hearing and attempting to comprehend the meaning of words spoken by another in a conversation or speech. Activity listening is an important business communication skill, and it can involve making sounds that indicate attentiveness, as well as the listener giving feedback in the form of a paraphrased rendition of what has been said by the other party for their confirmation.

When it comes to customer service, active listening is a key element in order to offer an excellent image of your business to the client by solving their problems effectively. However, this might not be as simple as it seems when dealing with loads of clients, remember that all of them are different. Let’s see some guidelines in order to apply this successfully.

Focus

It is one of the key points of active listening. The person who pays attention to the client must focus on them in order to correctly understand their message (specially when it comes to technical questions). In order to achieve this, you have to remove all external elements that might be distracting (music, noise, etc.), but also the person must have a high level of concentration. Therefore, a good night rest, a healthy diet, sports, and frequent breaks during the workday will improve active listening.

Have a little patience

If you want to improve active listening then you must patient. If you don’t let your client finish talking because you really want to talk or because you already have an answer then you will miss an important part of his message. You should not interrupt them, or draw conclusions in advance; remember these two things if you want to improve active listening.

Have empathy

It is essential when it comes to customer service. If you are able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, it will be easier for them to connect emotionally with you, which will help you understand his problem, and will also help you have greater sympathy. Empathy is one of the most important factors in the emotional part of customer service. To help you develop this, here it goes a classic phrase from a Greek philosopher Plato that will help you put yourself in someone else’s shoes: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Show real interest

Elements like the previous ones (concentration, patience, empathy) are the foundations to improve good active listening, but these may not be enough if our speaker doesn’t know what our attitude towards him is. It doesn’t matter how big the concentration, patience, or empathy is, if you are not able to transmit these to your customer, your clients might think that their problems are not interesting for the company since the employees are not paying attention.

Fortunately, showing that you care about their problems is not too complicated. Little things, such as making eye contact, nodding, or making small affirmations can help you show interest. And there are some good habits that can help you too. Let’s have a look at them:

Some healthy habits

In addition to all of the previous ones, which are part of the basis of active listening, there are some good habits that can make it even more effective:

• Have a good posture: when it comes to face-to-face customer service, lying on a chair as if you were in the living room of your house is not a good idea. Keeping your back straight and a slight inclination towards the client will show a better attitude.
• Do not interrupt: Bear this in mind; it is quite basic and essential. Interrupting your clients when they are speaking is a sign of bad manners and will give poor image.
• Ask short questions: if there is something you don’t know, ask the clients with a short and simple question. With this, you will achieve two things; you will understand their message better and you will show them that you are interested in understanding what they are trying to say.
• Use the same phrases: they work in a similar way to short questions. Formulas like “as you were telling me” or “you mentioned that you needed” are used to direct the conversation, and it will show that you have paid attention to the message of the speaker. Do you need more reasons to use these?
• Finally, sum up the key points: after having listened to the complete message of your speaker, mention again the essential things that you have understood that need to be solved, so that he can confirm that you have correctly grasped his message. It will help you to correct possible errors and will also let them know that you are interested in their problems.

These are some fundamentals and good habits in order to carry out good active listening. But we are sure that, in addition to good active listening, there are other decisive factors when it comes to providing good customer service. It is actually quite important is to have the right tools.

We would like to show you Pandora ITSM. Pandora ITSM is help desk software based on tickets, which will help you provide good customer service.

Do you want to find out what Pandora ITSM can do for you? Click here: https://pandorafms.com/en/itsm/help-desk-software/

Or you can also ask us any question that you might have about Pandora ITSM. You can do this by using the contact form that can be found at the following address: https://pandorafms.com/en/contact/

In addition to this, you should know that Pandora ITSM has other features that may also be useful, such as an inventory, a project management system or a feature for vacation management.

Get in touch with us. We will be happy to hear from you!