Are you using active listening to communicate effectively with customers?

By the time the customer calls you it’s likely that there was an unmet need in another channel or they have an unresolved issue. CBS money watch reported John Goodman’s research showed that roughly 4 percent of customers (1 out of 26) that were “wronged” by a company complain. The other 96 percent (25 out of 26) stop buying and tell 9 to 10 others within a week about their poor treatment.

Let's take a look at a few reasons to practice active listening to communicate effectively with customers:

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‍Customers call with unmet needs

‍Organizations make significant investments across virtual and physical channels to provide customers timely and relevant information about their products and services. And yet contact centers are fielding calls every day to address something the customer couldn’t find, was not clear enough or was lacking in key information.

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‍Customers call with unresolved problems

‍Unfortunately, from time to time, even with our best efforts we miss our customer’s expectations for service. These issues wind up disappointing customers, resulting in more frustrated calls to your contact center.

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‍How can I find out where it went wrong?

‍Wouldn’t you like to know where your marketing and sales campaigns, in-store or on-the-web customer experiences and other customer touch points in their customer journey are missing the mark? Uncover what processes, operational models, training or strategies need to be updated or adapted?

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‍When they call, your customers are giving you answers.

‍Imagine being able to harness the insight from these calls to make changes to your business that address previously unmet customer needs, and turn what used to be pain points and frustration into exemplary customer experiences. The true voice of the customer delivering immediate insight that focus groups and surveys can’t achieve, and which may in-fact be flawed as pointed out in this HBR article.

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‍Lower costs while driving NPS and revenue.

‍Addressing these new found insights would provide for a better customer experience, which results in improved satisfaction, conversion and retention but at a lower cost. You can address these opportunities in the correct channel at the correct time and reduce calls into your contact center. Now that's a solid reason to practice active listening to communicate effectively with customers.

‍Tethr — Advanced transcription and analytics will bring forward problems or unmet needs across channels.

‍Tethr is an incredibly smart recording platform that transcribes to text all of your enterprise conversations in real time. Tethr captures each sentence and analyzes it using dynamic intent analysis so business leaders know what to pay attention to. And it’s designed to integrate seamlessly into your phone network and Business Intelligence tools. Simply — connecting insights to action. Request a demo