

Service breakdowns happen, but how companies resolve them is how your customer will remember you. To deliver truly outstanding customer service, companies need to be able to resolve the difficult calls just as well as the easy ones. With active listening techniques, we signal to the customer that we are engaged and empathetic to their needs. Assuming you know what the needs of any given customer are because you’ve heard it all before, as opposed to actually listening to them, will create lacklustre customer experiences. Without actively listening, you’ll struggle to empathise with your customers. Active listening is intrinsically linked to customer empathy. Increases EmpathyĬustomer empathy is such an important tool in delivering better customer service. Not only does it help us understand our customers better, but there are many other benefits of active listening in customer service too. Benefits of Active Listening in Customer Service It allows for better communication, builds trust and ultimately delivers a better customer experience. It helps agents get to the root of queries and issues, as well as encourages agents to treat customers as the unique individuals they are. With active listening, we engage with customers to truly understand and help them. It’s a frustrating experience for everyone involved. Large companies who outsource to cheaper global locations can be particularly guilty of this as their agents are stuck with a script with minimal flexibility to actually hear and help customers. So often when we call up companies with an issue, that issue is amplified when we feel like the company is not hearing our problem. The reason active listening is such a vital skill in customer service is simple - customers want to be heard and understood. But it’s incredibly important to develop active listening as a skill for call handlers. After all, the customer can’t see your expressions or gestures. This means hearing tone and acknowledging the power of vocabulary.įor many customer service workers, this is much harder to achieve over the phone than it is face-to-face. It involves actively listening, often with all senses, as opposed to passively hearing another person.”Īctive listening in customer service means being entirely focused on what the customer is saying what words they’re using, what those words mean and responding in an empathetic manner. We can define it as: Active Listening Definition: “Active listening is a technique of listening that can be developed over time. Active listening is the opposite of this.Īctive listening is a technique of listening.
#Quick active listening exercises full#
We’re hearing someone, but we’re not really giving them our full attention. This is what’s known as passive listening. Similarly, we can get lost in our own thoughts, especially if we’ve been doing the same job for a while and feel like we’ve heard it all. Whether that’s other people in the house while remote working or office bustle. It’s easy to be distracted by other things happening around you.

Were you giving them your undivided attention? Think about the last time you were on the phone with a customer. What Is Active Listening in Customer Service?

Did you know around 75% of the time when we’re listening, we are distracted or preoccupied?
