How do you use active listening to handle difficult clients?

At the heart of active listening is a mindset of making others the hero of their story. The old axiom of 'people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care' is at play here because all people are interested in their own story. The empathy of placing yourself in their shoes, so to speak, is not merely a good technique for listening, but a helpful and genuine way to build relational equity.

Attentive listening is vital in client interactions, especially with challenging clients. It fosters trust, eases tension, and aids issue resolution. When clients feel understood, cooperation increases, leading to quicker problem-solving and stronger relationships. Active listening shows empathy and dedication, enhancing your reputation. It also uncovers hidden issues, helping address root causes of client dissatisfaction.

Active listening leads to effective client interactions, especially with difficult clients. It builds trust, diffuses tension, and paves the way for constructive problem-solving. When clients feel heard and understood, they're more likely to cooperate, leading to quicker issue resolution and a stronger client relationship. By actively listening, you acknowledge their concerns, foster empathy, and demonstrate your commitment to their satisfaction. This, in turn, can enhance your reputation, as clients appreciate the effort to understand their unique situation. Furthermore, active listening can uncover underlying issues that might not be immediately apparent allowing you to identify and address the root causes of client dissatisfaction.

Active listening is all about 2 things, in my experience: 1. To make your customer or prospect feel heard and understood. 2. To uncover hidden opportunities, objections, challenges. It's a crucial part in sales if you want to close as many deals as possible, as failing in this often leads to missed opportunities because: - You're prospect or customer will feel that you're not really understanding their problem/challenge - Miss the real, underlying objections which you cannot address in that case - Miss potential other business cases - Miss to identify other potential decision makers that will help you move the deal forward. It will also help in having a conersation in a more natural way. Start closing more deals, start listening actively.

In client services specifically, one thing I endeavored to do was not get attached to my ideas. We want so badly to prove value to our clients that sometimes we push what we want instead of listening to them. Be quick to “kill your darlings” and wipe your creative slate clean. Adjust to any new information you might receive, even if that means saying you need to think about it and get back to them later in the day.

First and foremost you need to be mentally present in the conversation. If you're in the conversation and also texting and mailing at the same time, you will never be capable of fully disclosing and understanding the situation at hand. Secondly, you need to listen to understand, and not to react. It's in other words not just waiting on some words to be said, to then say; 'I have a solution for that'. Keeping your mind open, further building on top of the words, asking clarifying questions and in the end paraphrasing what the prospect said and asking for confirmation. Thirdly, you need to ask follow-up questions to figure out the 'pains unmentioned' and find out to what extent the problem is real.

How to become an active listener is more about what's in it for them than it is for you to get what you need from their answers. Make them the hero by giving them room to share without interjecting. ?Ask open-ended questions so the person answering has to think about their answer: ?'What would it look like for you to be successful with this way of working?' instead of 'Do you want us to help you do that thing?' ?'What is one short-term win that would help you the most here and what's one longer-term success that we can help you build towards?' instead of 'Do you want a short-term quick fix or a long-term win here?' ?Ask. Then listen without interrupting. ?Ask clarifying questions to ensure you understand their intent.

I (think) I do my best active listening when I stop making sound completely. No “yeah‘s” or “okay’s” or the usual little acknowledgments when a client is talking. Doing this helps me focus on not only what the client is saying, but also reading between the lines to pick up what they’re not saying out loud.

Taking a human-centric approach is the key becoming a master of active listening. Clients are humans with real world personal and professional challenges. If you put yourself in their shoes at every point of the pre and post sales process, you'll deliver a world class solution.

The best exercises that we've done during different various sales training, where: - Role playing, where the focus is on practising this specific skill. - Take notes during conversations, with the goal of being able to relay the discussed points at different stages of the conversation. The more reps you get in, the easier (and faster) you'll master this skill. It's a matter of dedicated practice, like anything else.

- learn to focus on 1 thing - get enough sleep - empathise - learn patience In the end a well-rested, focused and empathic mindset will help you a very long way. Not only in life, but definitely also in sales ;)

While the role-playing described above may be helpful in certain business roles, it's a bit more nuanced when you're not trying to just win more business with your relational skills. At the center of the conversation is not the topic, but instead the reason for the conversation: the Why. Active listeners develop an acute interest in understanding the intrinsic motivations of the other person. Intrinsic motivation is their 'Why' and is an important part of who they are as a person. We all have external (extrinsic) motivations like financial success. But topical reasons are the dance of active listening to go beyond the extrinsic to identify the intrinsic motivation of the other person.

What has helped me to become a more active listener is making notes during the 1-2-1 calls with clients. When you assign this task to your brain, it automatically starts listening carefully to what a client has to say. After around 40-60 days it will become your habit.

Role playing, especially for sales and delivery professionals, can unlock a litany of proverbial holes in your game and subsequently helps you find ways to address those weak points. If you continuously play out challenging scenarios you'll find that you'll become more comfortable with your clients, can easily speak to business challenges, find ways to set-up your client for success, and ultimately learn how to actively listen for pain points.

Less of a game is simply the art of practice. We become better active listeners by refraining from interrupting or redirecting the conversation focus back to ourselves or even by stopping ourselves mid-sentence when we realize we went from active listener to active speaker and apologizing for not continuing to listen. Practice here is not about 'practice makes perfect' but rather that on the road of not sucking at being an active listener, sucking less a bit at a time is still valuable progress worth celebrating with ourselves.

Lastly, if a person is looking for a better technique, active listening is not going to help because the value of being an active listener is not to hear more but to say less by taking an active interest in the other person. People intuitively know, to varying degrees, when someone is actually not just a patient listener but an empathetic and interested active listener.

A few years ago, a frustrated client gave me a call telling me that he was not happy with the results our agency delivered. By applying the active listening technique, I managed to unravel that the actual problem was not the results we delivered, but the actual follow ups by his sales team. He was actually not frustrated with out performance, but with his own teams' performance. This allowed me to adress his challenges and concerns right on the spot and actually (up)selling him a sales training for his team! Active listening will provide opportunities in various forms, when reps have been done and the skill is masterd