The last piece in this series provided a conceptual look at how to practice active listening when facilitating customer interviews. Our advice was to “simply be present”; though anyone who’s attempted any sort of mindfulness practice can tell you how complex this really is.
Practically speaking then, how do you start practicing Active Listening in customer interviews now? This is what we aim to discuss here. To do so we’ll share the steps to Active Listening which we follow in our research efforts [1, 2]:
- Listen to Comprehend
- Retain and Feel
- Respond
- Repeat
We start with listening intently. By practicing our scripts, having our recording mechanisms set up, and ensuring we maintain composure and eye contact with the participant, we remain present and are able to listen completely.
We then utilize our empathy skillset to feel each participant response. This allows us to retain more understanding of it.
Once we’ve empathetically processed the participant’s point of view, we encourage them with responses which restate or clarify their points. This not only helps the participant to be more open, but it helps train our brains to retain even more.
Finally, we repeat these short steps consistently throughout the interview allowing us to get the most out of each session.
Sounds easy enough, right? But, how do you know you’re doing it right?
In our opinion, the best way to know if you’re doing it right is to know when you’re doing it wrong. And that’s exactly what we’ll be discussing next!
*Photo by Tim Gouw
Sources
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Grohol, John M. Psy.D. Become a Better Listener: Active Listening. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/lib/become-a-better-listener-active-listening/
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Common Good (2016, July 14). Practicing Active Listening & Empathy Workshop. Retrieved from https://medium.com/common-good/practicing-active-listening-empathy-workshop-d0895a8f3a00
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Wikipedia. Active Listening. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/
