The Art of Active Listening

By Samantha Benson, Customer Service Manager at Steel Dragon Tools

The customer service representative at Steel Dragon Tools have all been trained to be active listeners. Active listening is a way of communicating with another person to improve mutual understanding. Sometimes, when two people are talking to each other, one or both may not be actively listening, they may be distracted or simply waiting for the other person to finish so they can speak.

Below are some active listening techniques that we use to help our customer service representative become better communicators. These techniques work well in the realm of customer service but can be applied in any situation to help us understand each other better and improve our daily relationships.

Active Listening in Every Situation

Do:

• Paraphrase the speaker’s words.
• Be mentally prepared to listen.
• Evaluate the speech, not the speaker.
• Be unbiased toward the speaker by depersonalizing and stepping away from emotional response.
• Fight distractions by tuning out external sounds.
• Ask questions to clarify and corroborate thoughts.

Don’t:

• Show boredom.
• Get distracted by outside stimuli.
• Prepare your response or mentally argue while the speaker is talking.
• Interrupt the speaker.
• Reflex on the rightness or wrongness of what is being said.

This is the second part of the article Communicating for Success. To view the first part of the article, click here.

Steel Dragon Tools customer service can be contacted by e-mail or by phone at 734-224-7112.