“Why is she telling me this again, I got it the first time?” Steve thought to himself as he suppressed his annoyance with Jan and wondered how he could finish the conversation quickly.
Steve didn’t realise that he was the one who was prolonging the conversation. He was sure he was listening to Jan. He made eye contact with her and gave her his full attention. He understood clearly what she was saying about the details of the new website and yet somehow she kept repeating herself. Perhaps she needed to go on a communication course.
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Topics: Emotion, Conversations, Difficult Conversations, Difficult Internal Customers, Feedback, feelings, Listening, Thriving Under Fire
I have just returned from Christchurch where I presented a free seminar for businesses and organisations on dealing with angry people in post earthquake Christchurch.
Participants from many sectors recognised the same stresses in their staff and customers.
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Topics: customer service, Emotion, Upset People, Difficult customers, Distress, Feedback, Natural Disaster, Reactions, Stress, Thriving Under Fire
My nephew Scott Garvie, a Wellington plumber (see Scotty’s Potties), volunteered to work for a week in earthquake-stricken Christchurch. He discovered that people needed to talk even more than they needed their plumbing fixed — and listening became harder than fixing their toilets! My own experience of talking on the phone with friends from Christchurch confirms this. People who have gone through severe shocks, like the earthquake, desperately want to talk about their experiences.
This makes being a good listener so important.
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Topics: Emotion, Upset People, Distress, Grief, Listening, Natural Disaster, Reactions
When I rang my friend in Christchurch the other night, his 13 year old son answered the phone. “You must have got quite a shake up by the earthquake” I said. “Nah, not really, it was nothing”, he shot back offhandedly. I was taken aback but didn't pursue the conversation at the time.
Later his father told me that he had stopped his son making inappropriate jokes about the earthquake. At that point I saw clearly how this was the boy’s way of dealing with the scary shake.
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Topics: Emotion, Emotions, Grief, Listening, Natural Disaster, Reactions, Stress
People buy on emotion. Relationships are based on emotion. What do you do when someone is really emotional? It might be a customer, staff member or spouse who gets upset. You want to calm them down so you can deal with the business issues at hand. Many people think that by being reasonable they can communicate best. However, the other person is not rational in this moment, they are emotional. When someone is emotional they are feeling a great deal and they are expressing this to you. They want to be acknowledged, seen, and heard in this moment of distress. If you make your first response to them an acknowledgement of their feelings you will go a long way to building a strong business relationship. This acknowledgment may be as simple as “Oh dear, I’m sorry that XYZ has happened” or “This has been a real nuisance for you, hasn’t it” or “Wow, I am sorry, I didn’t realise how much it has affected you” or even “Bugger!” (said in a caring kind of way). Don’t rush on with more words, pause to let what you have said sink in and give time for them to respond before going for the ‘fix it’ part of your response.
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Topics: customer service, APE, Emotion, Emotions, Sales