Hear ye! Oyez! Active listening applied to sales
Active listening is a psychological technique mainly used in human resources management.
But it is also very useful in customer relationship management, particularly during the prospecting, sales and after-sales service stages.
At a time when the customer experience and customer concerns are at the heart of every strategy, active listening is the ideal way to reassure customers, understand and respond to their needs, and build customer loyalty.
What exactly is active listening? What are its objectives, benefits and method?
Active listening: definition, origin and challenges
The concept of active listening originated in the United States, more specifically with Carl Rogers, a humanist psychologist and pioneer of non-directive techniques.
Among his works, this communication technique, also known as benevolent listening, consists of :
- listening attentively to the other person, without interruption, interpretation or judgment,
- paying attention to both verbal and non-verbal cues,
- then using :
- questioning to make sure you've understood the message or expression of need ;
- rephrasing to demonstrate understanding and summarize the exchange.
☝️ The latter is particularly used by the sales team during the sales meeting, particularly during the discovery plan.
Fundamental values
How do you adopt an active listening attitude? By conveying these values:
- sincerity,
- patience
- availability,
- observation of body language and non-verbal behaviour,
- respect,
- openness,
- objectivity, or at least recognition of one's own subjectivity,
- non-directiveness,
- empathy.
The objectives of active listening
🎯 The aim is to obtain validation, confirmation and trust from the person expressing themselves, to rule out any possibility of misunderstanding or waste of time, and to go further in the exchanges, qualitative ones at that.
In the fields of HR, training and personal development, the advantages are :
- creating a climate of trust, conducive to self-expression,
- overcoming potential blockages,
- defusing and resolving conflicts.
☝️ This technique is used during annual or professional interviews.
It's obvious that the benefits of such a method can also be applied to customer relations for :
- understanding needs,
- removing buying disincentives,
- building a relationship based on trust,
- managing customer relations in the event of complaints or disputes.
🎯 The customer gives you more time and develops his argumentation, he takes you into his confidence.
What are active listening techniques?
Active listening involves 4 stages. It can be easily adapted to different sales techniques, such as the QQOQCP or SONCAS method, in the phases of discovering needs, buying motivations and obstacles.
Step 1: Listening
It's all about being attentive, but not passive.
But how? Some people call it positive silence: it's all about gestures and behavior, such as smiles, nods and concentrated gazes.
If silence seems to bother or worry your interlocutor, you can also punctuate his or her arguments with encouraging and reassuring words, such as "yes, I understand".
Step 2: Clarification
After listening, it's time for questioning.
The aim here is to :
- clarifying the customer's key ideas, feelings and/or points of view,
- understanding the meaning of the words used and avoiding any misunderstanding, which could be due to the sender 's poor expression but also the receiver's misunderstanding .
Sample questions:
- What do you mean by...?
- Can you rephrase it?
- Could you give me an example?
🤓 Of course, during the answers, you switch back to "active listening" mode.
Step 3: Investigation
You've clarified the meaning of the words used, now you can delve deeper into your customer's words, situation and emotions.
Several types of questions can help you do this:
- open-ended questions: "Why is this important to you?
- factual questions: "What impact has (success/problem) had on your production?
- survey questions, asking for the customer's opinion: "In your opinion, what is good customer support?
They have the merit of :
- help you identify the importance of needs or objections, their origins, and begin to envisage solutions;
- encourage your interlocutor to go further in his or her own thinking.
Step 4: Reformulation
The reformulation is the result of all the listening, clarification and investigation work:
- not only is the customer reassured that he or she has been listened to and understood, and can even provide clarification if necessary,
- but the sales person is certain of having all the information he or she needs to rebound, either with a sales argument, a new offer or by closing the file.
Rephrasing offers repetition, enabling memorization, synthesis and conclusion.
Understanding for better selling
Between what I think, what I mean, what I think I say, what I say, what you want to hear, what you hear, what you understand... there are ten possibilities for us to have difficulty communicating. But let's try anyway...
Bernard Werber
Active listening is a fundamental sales technique. Unlike more insistent methods of the past, you get on the same wavelength as your customer, thereby encouraging commitment. At the same time, you set yourself apart from your more hurried (and urgent) competitors.
Even when you're used to it, active listening isn't easy for salespeople, especially when they've got targets to meet.
However, contrary to appearances, it can save you precious time.
Last but not least, take notes and record everything in a CRM, like Salesforce Sales Cloud, so you don't forget and lose all that listening. You'll be able to refer back to it whenever you need to talk again.
Take a look at our directory for other CRM solutions.
Article translated from French