4 Tips to Better Listen to Your Clients

Are you listening to your clients?

Chances are, probably not enough. According to recent research from The Workforce Institute at UKG, 86 percent of people surveyed feel that they aren’t heard at work. Listening and understanding what a client wants is a skill in and of itself. If you don’t know what your client wants, it doesn’t matter how great you are – they won’t believe a word you say!

The good news? There are plenty of ways to better listen to your clients and optimize your business practices. Below are some tips to consider.

Communicate Well

It might sound odd that we’d start an article about listening with a talking tip but hear us out – the way you communicate with your customers has a significant effect on how you listen. While many businesses solicit client feedback at a yearly review (Concorde Investment Services has a great e-book on leveraging client reviews for better business), we’re focusing on the everyday conversations you have with clients. The experts at Forbes recommend speaking with your clients regularly to stay at the front of their minds, so make sure you respond to emails quickly.

Why? Constant conversation means that you’re less likely to start a project off in the wrong direction. It also makes the client feel more involved, which brings us to our next point.

Ask Your Client for Ideas

Businesses are always looking for ways to improve their service offering, and they’re the experts in their field. So don’t feel strange asking them for their feedback or asking them for their ideas. The marketing experts at HubSpot shared the following tips to get your clients talking:

• Start with open-ended questions: ask questions about their business, the market, the struggles they’re facing. All of these are great ways to mine your clients’ experience and understand what they’re going through. Their commentary is a goldmine of information regarding feedback and getting a sense of the business’s long-term goals.
• Slowly get to specifics: ask about competitors, ask about their priorities for the quarter, their plans, and the specific pain points that they’re handling at the moment.

Practice Active Listening

It’s great to communicate and ask your clients questions, but it’s essential to ensure that you’re listening. So how can you be a better active listener for your clients? The experts at Very Well Mind offer the following tips:

• Make eye contact: this is one of the essential parts of active listening. Eye contact lets your client know that you’re engaged in the conversation.
• Paraphrase: resist the urge to give advice, and instead, focus on paraphrasing what your client has just said. Paraphrasing works in two distinct ways – firstly, it ensures that you’re listening to what they say enough to paraphrase it. Secondly, it gives your client the chance to clarify if you’ve misunderstood.
• Don’t interrupt: allow your client to finish their thought before you begin to chime in.
• Watch nonverbal cues: your client is saying just as much with their body language and posture as they are with words. For example, crossed arms and frowns could indicate that your client is uncomfortable, while relaxed posture and gesture mirroring all suggest your client is happy with what you’re saying.
• Shut down internal dialogue: many people have an internal dialogue, especially when trying to control a business situation. However, listening to your client is impossible when you’re listening to your own inner monologue. Take great pains to stay in the present during client meetings.

Keep Your Cool

Staying calm is easier said than done, especially when criticism isn’t warranted. However, keeping calm when receiving negative feedback, however painful, is essential to listen to what your client has to say. If you find yourself seeing red (or blue) when a client has something less than stellar to say, try some of these tips recommended by Harvard Business Review:

• Breathe: this sounds basic, but it’s one of the best ways to regulate your nervous system. If you notice yourself getting upset in a meeting, take a minute to count your breaths – a few in, a few out – and you’ll feel calmer in moments.
• Focus on your body: while standing up might feel abrupt in a meeting, a quick walk around is one of the best ways to keep calm. Of course, we appreciate that this isn’t always possible, so if you know that you’re going to have a difficult meeting or your client is combative, suggest a space where you can stand or prepare a presentation that you’ll need to deliver standing.
• Use a mantra: we create our realities and saying something positive in a moment of difficulty can be incredibly comforting. Remind yourself of the bigger picture with a mantra like ‘this is about the business’ or ‘this will pass’.
• Label your feelings: did you know that labeling your emotions can help you feel more in control? For example, instead of thinking, ‘Wow, she’s wrong about this month’s performance and what we need to do in the future’, think ‘I’m thinking that I’m frustrated because the actionable results we’ve produced don’t align with her KPIs, and I’m feeling irritation.’

Better listening can begin by pausing your restless train of thought and asking, ‘Am I listening?’ Hopefully, that simple reminder, with the tips above will keep you listening to your clients.