Sorry, I Didn’t Catch That: The Importance of Active Listening

In a world where multitasking and low attention spans are the norm, organizations are struggling to keep up with their customers’ needs and expectations. 

The fact that customers have less patience than ever before compounds the problem with real business implications. 58% of American consumers shared they would switch companies because of poor customer service (Microsoft). Brands must prioritize active listening as a fundamental component of their training strategy to improve customer satisfaction. 

On this episode of the Innovating the Customer Experience podcast, our J.D. Power experts Michael Vermillion, Senior Managing Director, Global Business Intelligence, and Mark Miller, Customer Service Advisory Practice Leader, are joined by Lauren Pragoff, Chief Customer Officer at Medicat, to explore the benefits of active listening. 

What is Active Listening and How Does it Contribute to the Customer Experience?

Reflect on a recent conversation and how you determined if the other person was actively listening. During your discussion, they may have maintained eye contact or leaned in to focus on your message. But for call representatives, showing undivided attention requires additional methods.  

One approach is to pause to internalize the customer's concern and take a moment to digest what is being said before responding appropriately. The result is better and more efficient customer interactions. 

Without active listening call center reps are more likely to run into issues such as: 

• Misdiagnosing the problem and forcing customers to call back once they realize an incorrect solution has been provided. 
• Creating the impression that your organization relies on a generic script and lacks the willingness to personalize customer experiences or properly listen to concerns.
• Missing important cues, possibly for an upsell or cross-sale opportunity.
• Not providing a solution in a timely manner, taking away time from other customer concerns.

Beware of Repetition

A representative who actively listens does not ask customers for the same information repeatedly. According to J.D. Power research, when customers must repeat themselves, satisfaction can take a nosedive, decreasing by up to 181 points on a 1,000-point scale. 

Call center representatives are not the only ones who contribute to this issue. Many automated systems ask customers for information to verify their account, which is asked again once these customers are connected to a live agent. 

Tactical Tip: Refine the authentication process. Companies can invest in programs that ask different account verification questions than call center reps. This will limit the repeat of information and make it clear to your customers that you’re respecting their time.    

Why are Organizations Struggling with Active Listening?  

Multiple factors work against call center reps to prevent them from actively listening to customer concerns: 

• High attrition rates lead to increased time and effort for new hires to learn and navigate systems, which can limit their ability to focus on addressing the specific customer concern at hand. 
• Pressure to receive good QA evaluations, which can distract reps from missing key information.
• Making assumptions about customer concerns based on previous experience, leading to an incorrect evaluation of the issue and a misguided solution.

What can Organizations do to Promote Active Listening?

Active listening can improve if the organization takes steps to reinforce the behavior. Some things to try include:  

• Provide incentives and the right training to ensure active listening is being prioritized.
• Minimize the number of systems and screens reps must navigate to resolve a customer concern, especially in the early days of employment. 
• Ease up on time restrictions so reps don’t feel rushed to get through their customer interactions. 
• Encourage reps to show concern and compassion during every customer interaction.

Final Thoughts and Next Steps

How can you prioritize and promote active listening within your own organization?

• Understand how difficult your organization may currently be making it for your reps to actively listen. Examine if there are any ways you’ve inadvertently created distractions.
• Identify the signs of active listening to look for in your representatives. Understand the metrics you want to measure then listen to recorded conversations from your team and diagnose what issues may be occurring.
• Explore available tech tools in the market to determine if they can seamlessly be incorporated into training to help mitigate active listening challenges.

Listen in to the episode below to learn more about incorporating active listening into your overall strategy to improve the customer service experience.