Listening: The Key to Business Success

If you’re in business today, you know how competitive the marketplace is for virtually any product or service today. You need to find a way to make your business stand out.

You know promotional products are a key part of your marketing plan, of course. But there’s an even more critical element to attracting and keeping customers – listening. And that’s a harder challenge than you might think.

“What’s so hard about listening?” you might be asking. “Of course we listen to our customers.”

Really? Consider your biggest customer. What do they make or sell? You can probably answer that one easily.

But do you know what you can do to help make them more successful? Do you know why they buy from you rather than your competitor? Do you know what you can do to keep them buying from you instead of that competitor?

Listening 101

When I say listen to the customer, I don’t just mean hear their words. I mean understand their words, comprehend the meaning behind them, find out what they truly need. Once you understand, respond to their needs and wants to solve their problems. Do that and you’ll build customer loyalty and forge a strong relationship that can help both your business and your customers’ to grow.

Let’s face it, in today’s world, customers are fickle. Thanks to the internet, they don’t need you to sell them, what they need. They can find anything the want with just a mouse click.

Making matters worse, you probably won’t be able to compete on price alone with online sellers. So why should a customer bring their hard-earned dollars to you?

You Are a Problem-Solver

Simple. They should come to you because your business can solve their problem. You are the expert who knows exactly the right product or service they need to eliminate an issue they’re having.

Active Listening: The Key to Success

So how do you find out what the customer’s problem is, and how you can solve it? Through active listening, a series of techniques you can use to improve mutual understanding between you and the customer. Learning to use them properly can improve communication in your personal life as well as professionally.

Active listening skills include:

Attentiveness

Give the customer your full attention. Put away your cell phone, ignore distractions and focus on the speaker. Note their mood, tone and choice of words. Pay attention to body language and non-verbal cues.

Eye Contact

Maintaining proper eye contact with your customer is a key step. This one can be tricky. Too little contact, and they’ll get the impression you’re not really paying attention. Too much can be uncomfortable and awkward. Experts advise maintaining eye contact, four or five seconds at a time, for about 70 percent of your time spent listening.

But that can vary, depending on the customer, the culture and the circumstances of your meeting. The best advice is to adjust as you feel necessary, but try to keep eye contact through about 50 to 70 percent of your listening time.

Open-Ended Questions

To get useful information about your customer’s needs and wants, ask open-ended questions. Anything they can answer with a simple yes or no is limiting. Examples of open-ended questions you can use include

• Can you tell me what issue you want to solve?
• How are you dealing with the issue now?
• Can you tell me a little be more about that?
• What is the most important thing you’re looking for?

Patience

Being patient while listening gives the customer a chance to speak without interruption. Don’t be in a rush to fill silences with your own thoughts. Don’t change the subject too abruptly. Give them a chance to voice their opinions and concerns.

Mirroring

After the customer has spoken, reflect back to them what you’ve heard. For example, “What I’m hearing is, you’re frustrated with this situation.” Or “In other words, this situation frustrates you.” Give them a chance to say whether you’ve grasped their meaning.

Listening Without Judgment

Listen to what the customer says without having a preconceived notion of what they should/shouldn’t be looking for.  It’s important to understand their need from their perspective before offering a solution.

With existing customers, be sure to listen with an open mind to feedback they might have about your current products or services. They could have ideas that would lead to an even better solution to their problem, and benefit future customers as well.

Effective Listening: A Case Study

Let’s say for example, that you run a janitorial supply company. YourTown Memorial Hospital is having trouble keeping its floors in the main corridor looking clean and polished. They’re using good quality maintenance equipment and have a well-trained custodial staff.

But the heavy foot traffic through corridor means the painstakingly applied finish walks off within a couple of weeks. That leaves the floors dingy and dull, and not consistent with the image they want to project. Administrators are frustrated.

The hospital has been dealing with your competitor across town. So the housekeeping manager calls them, and asks how to solve the problem.

But Store X doesn’t really care about solving the problem. They just want to sell the hospital three expensive new buffers. “These are just what you need. Replace your old equipment with these.”

The housekeeping manager has to work within a budget, so she’s skeptical. She calls you up and wants to find out what you can do to help the hospital’s floors look better.

Here’s where your listening skills come into play. First, you need information. Find out what kind of floor finish they’re using, how often they’re applying it, what equipment they’re using to maintain it. And, importantly, learn how long they expect the floor finish to last, given the number of people walking on it each day.

Once you have all that information – which you’ve gained through your active listening skills -- you can recommend solutions. It could be something as simple as having the staff buff the floors more frequently. Or you might sell them a better, longer-lasting finish that can withstand the wear and tear.

Suppose you supply a new finish, and train the hospital employees on the best way to use it. The floors look great, and manpower costs are lower, because they don’t have to be refinished as often. Administrators notice, and commend the housekeeping manager, who’s happy it didn’t cost several thousand dollars to solve her problem.

Speaking as a former hospital housekeeping manager, I can assure you that manager will remember what you did for them. And who do you think they’ll call the next time they need a multi-thousand floor scrubbing machine?

Listening to Your Customers Offers Long-Term Rewards

Not every instance of listening to a customer will result in a big sale, of course. But they will always increase customer loyalty and satisfaction with your brand. To quote the Beatles, you know that can’t be bad. Learn to listen and you’ll soon hear the sound of success.

And of course, if you have a problem our custom products can solve, call or email to talk to one of our sales representatives. We'll listen carefully and help you find a solution.