Listening Skills Assessment

Listen So Customers Feel Heard

Sometimes customers just want to be heard. Sometimes we hear only what we want to hear. Sometimes we do hear customers and they are still angry. Sometimes we miss the customer's point and make them angrier still.

Learn to Listen and Respond with Purpose

Listening is more than hearing. Listening is the ability to receive, attend to, interpret, and respond to verbal messages and other cues, like body language, in ways that are appropriate to the purpose.

If the customer is socializing, our purpose is to enjoy, so we listen and respond in a relaxed manner. If the customer wants to persuade us, our purpose is judgment, so we listen and respond differently.

It is estimated that people screen out or misunderstand the intended meaning or purpose of a message in over 70 percent of communications, making listening the biggest contributing factor to miscommunication.

The Impact of Different Listening Approaches

Behavioral research shows that people approach listening with different purposes and with different motivations related to achieving that purpose.

The Listening Skills Assessment is a self-directed learning instrument that helps people discover their preferred or most natural approach to listening as they gain insight into other listening approaches.

The Listening Assessment identifies five listening approaches:

Appreciative
Empathic
Comprehensive
Discerning
Evaluative

Click here to view a sample Listening Skills Assessment

Use The Right Listening Approach

The Listening Skills Assessment helps people see that their preferred listening approach may not be appropriate to every situation.

They learn when and how to adopt another listening approach for more successful communication. It outlines three primary factors to consider in choosing the listening approach appropriate to the situation: