Rapport building is an integral part of the communication process. Lack of, or absence of rapport can fundamentally affect the outcome of any conversation. Isn’t it true that sometimes we just ‘click’ with some people and get on really well with them? In such instances the conversation runs smoothly, it is enjoyable and the results are so much better than when the communication is strained and we fail to ‘gel’ with the person we are talking to. 

Telephone conversations in call centres are a prime example of how rapport can help the outcome. You may have a limited time to allocate to your caller so you need to maximise that time effectively to get the information you need to be able to provide the best service. Good rapport will get you there faster. 

Good rapport isn’t about ‘making best friends’ with your caller it means that a comfortable ‘state’ where all parties converse freely and comfortably is created. The extra benefit is that it makes the time you spend with your caller more enjoyable. Here are some tips for creating good rapport. 

1)     Open the call with a smile – believe it, a smile can be heard and a ‘smiling voice’ is more welcoming and relaxing. Your caller will subconsciously appreciate it and like you. 

2)     Start the conversation with a ‘warm up’, a simple question that will let your caller know you are human! This could be ‘how is your day so far’, or ‘how is the weather where you are today, better than here I hope!’. Most people will respond to you in a friendly manner and it helps to relax you and your caller by ‘breaking the ice’. Reply to their answer with a relevant but positive response and then move the call forward such as:‘That’s great, I’m glad you are having a good day. How can I help with your call today, or ‘So the weather is as bad as it is here, never mind, the sun could be out tomorrow for us. ‘How can I help with your call today’.     

3)     Listen well – avoid distractions and allow yourself to concentrate on your caller and their conversation.   

4)     Let the caller know you are listening by responding with gentle and soft ‘ums and ‘ahs’ as they speak.   5)     Allow the speaker to finish what they are saying – practise this with every call. If you interrupt your caller could become frustrated. 

6)     Use words that your caller uses in their conversation, especially any adjectives – the words they use to describe something. They have chosen to use the words, so they have a relevance to the content, an alternative word may not have the same meaning for them. Example: your caller says ‘The results were excellent’. In this instance the word ‘excellent’ was chosen because it reflects what the speaker felt. To build rapport use the same word back at any relevant time. Example: ‘I agree with what you said earlier, the results were excellent’. If you were to reply with: ‘I agree with what you said earlier, the results were ok’, it will subconsciously confuse your caller because they didn’t say ‘ok’; their chosen word was ‘excellent’.  7)     Show empathy with your caller, to show empathy means to share in  another’s emotions, thoughts, or feelings, and is a great way of building rapport. Empathy can be shown by using phrases such as: ‘I understand what you mean’. ‘I can see where you are coming from’. ‘That must have made you feel really good’, ‘I understand why you would think that way’. 

     Be yourself and relax. If you are uptight or trying to be someone or something you are not, it will act as a barrier to building rapport.  9)     If you read a script as part of your job, put your own personality into it so that it sounds as though the words are your words and that you are not reading from a piece of paper. Use inflection, modulation and pitch to help make the script interesting for the listener. Your caller will thank you for it, isn’t it true that we sometimes ‘switch off’ when we hear what sounds like a script being read to us? 

10) Be friendly, it is possible to remain professional and courteous and still be friendly. This is easily achieved by using good inflection and modulation in your voice, by showing an interest in your callers conversation and by sharing laughter and lighthearted moments when the opportunity to do so arises during the call.  Enjoy your rapport building it will make your calls more productive and pleasant for both you and your caller.

Share This

1)     Prevent yourself from being distracted by colleagues or external noises and concentrate on what your caller is saying.

2)     Listen to the emotion in your callers voice, does it match or endorse the words they are using?

3)     Ask questions to gain more information on points you need to clarify.

4)     You listen more effectively when you’re not talking so refrain from interrupting your caller,  let them finish what they are saying, interruptions may break their train of thought.

5)     Avoid pre-empting what your caller is going to say, chances are you will be wrong and miss some of the content of their conversation.

6)     Summarise and reflect back to check you have heard the key facts and content of the callers conversation correctly. It also lets the caller know you have understood them. Use statements such as  “What I’m hearing is…” and “Sounds like you are saying…” are great ways to reflect back and summarise.

7)     If you are having difficulty listening make the necessary adjustments. You might say, “I’m sorry I missed that last point. Please repeat that for me.”

     Have a pen and paper to hand and get into the habit of making short quick references to any questions you want to ask or points you wish to raise or comment on. When your caller has finished speaking refer back to your notes and take action. If you are thinking of answers and responses whilst the caller is speaking, you are not listening.

9)     Avoid stereotyping individuals by making assumptions about how you expect them to act and what you expect them to say. This will bias your listening.

10) Listen for the key words, nouns and verbs – they are the words that deliver the main content of a sentence. 

Share This

Transactional - a communication or activity between two or more people that influences and affects all of them  Analysis – Study investigation Transactional Analysis (TA) focuses on the interaction between two or more people. By understanding how we communicate Eric Bearne the founder of TA discovered that changing the interaction was a way of solving emotional issues that could hinder a positive outcome of a conversation.Bearne, a psychoanalytic-trained psychiatrist believed in making a commitment to “curing” his patients rather than just understanding them. TA describes how people are structured psychologically. It uses a simple Parent-Adult-Child model to do this which indicates that at any given time, a person manifests their personality through a mixture of behaviours which fall into one of the three categories, Parent Adult Child, known as Ego states

Parent ego state: represents the occasions when during conversations we respond in a manner that copies the behaviours and actions of parental or influential figures from our lifetime. Can you recall instances when you hear yourself thinking ‘I sound just like my mother/father/teacher’? You are reflecting and copying their behaviour.For example, during a conversation a person may display anger by shouting at someone because they learnt from an early age that when the parent shouts the child takes notice.

Adult ego state: represents the occasions when during conversations we draw on our lifetime of experiences as an adult to guide us objectively to a positive outcome. When we are in our Adult state we see, hear and respond to people as they really are, and have an understanding of why they are reacting as they do, rather than accepting at face value the way they choose to communicate. For example, during a telephone call our organisation were to be criticised we would respond with a calm, logical response which aimed to reduce or remove the emotion from the discussion in order to resolve issues in a logical and factual manner. We would adopt this state having learnt throughout our lifetime that shouting, sulking, answering back or other emotional states will detract from, and add an extension to the time when a resolution is reached.

Child ego state: represents the occasions when during conversations we revert to behaving, feeling and thinking similarly to how we did in childhood. For example, during a conversation a person who receives criticism may react as they did in their childhood when they were reprimanded. This reaction may take on an emotional form, crying, sulking, answering back or perhaps feeling ashamed or angry.When we adopt an ego state it is generally through an immediate and unconscious action an action that is based on how we responded to a similar situation during our early formative years. Example: an angry customer calls your organisation with a complaint. The customer has adopted the Parental state, learning from an early age that when his parents shouted at him, he took notice and felt bad and did all he could to make amends. By mimicking what he learnt and shouting at you he is banking on you taking notice of him, feeling bad and making amends, probably by way of an apology, refund, replacement or compensation. You have also had childhood learning’s and your childhood learning’s may have taken one of the following routes:

1)      you responded to someone shouting at you, by shouting back

2)      you responded to someone shouting at you in the same way as your caller did as a child by feeling bad and doing all you could to make amends

3)      you responded to someone shouting at you in an adult manner, by remaining calm, and using facts and logic to achieve a harmonious outcome for everyone.

If you respond with route 1 you will surprise your customer, he wasn’t expecting that sort of response, his past learning’s have taught him that you would take notice, feel bad and make amends. His next response is to try again this time, shouting even louder and continuing to do so until he gets the response he was looking for and expected. When he doesn’t he may ask for a manager so he can try with someone else. Eventually if he continues to get the ‘route 1’ response, he ‘burns out’ and either ends the call defeated or hangs up in frustration.

If you respond with route 2 your customer will get the reaction he expected and he has moved to a position of control. He will retain his Parent ego state until he has achieved the outcome that he wanted from the call.

By responding with routes 1 or 2 it is possible that the outcome may not be suitable to your organisation. The customer may not have the correct facts, he may be ‘trying it on’, or he may have good reason to be angry. Whatever his justification whilst you are both operating in Adult ego states as in route 1 or Adult and Child states as in route 2 you are not in a position to negotiate and bring the conversation to a positive conclusion for all parties. The result is either, an outcome where the customer is happy but your organisation is working at a loss, or an outcome which leads to a dissatisfied and even angrier customer which could potentially damage the reputation of your organisation.

If you respond with route 3 you will be drawing on all your experiences of handling a parental ego state and reaching a resolution that is fair and just. You may have to negotiate to achieve a suitable outcome for both parties but negotiation can only take place when both callers are acting from their adult ego states.  

No doubt the training and guidance you have received for dealing with difficult customers is based on maintaining an Adult state. Initially it is suggested that you: 1) Listen to your callers issues and apologise, whether it’s your fault or not. It may not come easily to you but an apology is the first step to resolving the issue in an Adult state. Even if, based on the information your caller has just given to you it is clear that your organisation is not at fault, apologise of the fact that the caller feels the way they do. “I’m sorry you feel this way……………………..”

2) Sit tight until they have finished complaining. Prior to making the call your customer  will no doubt have practiced what they intended to say and no amount of interrupting will stop them from saying it! It may be possible that based on your childhood experiences you feel you want to answer back or become emotionally upset. To react in either of these ways will prolong the point of resolution. 

3) Once your customer realizes you are not going to respond in the way he anticipated he will start to move from Parent state to Adult state, when his logic to the current situation is realised. He will have nothing left to say and has no need to repeat anything because you have demonstrated that you have listened to him, and taken on board his reasons for being angry and upset.

4) Once you are sure he has finished his ‘script’ you can address any points that need clarification. Communicating in Adult state will require you at to ask questions so that you can fully understand all the facts. 5) Once you are in possession of al the facts you are in a position to resolve the situation. Entering the conversation in Adult state and maintaining it will have a positive effect on your caller. Initially they may adopt a Parent state but if you choose not to respond in Parent or even Child state you will encourage him to move to Adult mode too.

There are two ego states to Parent:

1)      Controlling Parent

2)      Nurturing Parent

Controlling parent will most likely be adopted by and angry customer as they draw on the experiences of an angry adult from their childhood. There are occasions when a Controlling Parent state is a positive approach to communication. It is perfect to introduce into the conversation when you need to offer direct, constructive criticism, communicate boundaries or present a caring but firm attitude.

As it implies anyone adopting the

Nurturing

Parent

State communicates in a caring manner. There are probably few instances when a customer would need to communicate with you in this state, but there may be occasions when you do. If a caller contacts your organisation and is clearly in a state of emotional distress and possible even tearful it would be appropriate to move into Nurturing Parent state to calm them down. As you progress though the conversation move into Adult state and maintain it. This will encourage your customer to follow you so that you can resolve the issue for them. If they choose to remain emotionally distressed it will affect their ability to work with you. Take care when adopting Nurturing Parent state, if it is used in an inappropriate manner or time your customer could interpret it as sarcasm or a condescending manner.

An emotionally distressed customer has chosen to adopt the Child state, likewise a customer who makes proclamations such as ‘It’s not fair, I’ve paid good money for this’. Should it be apparent that your customer is in such a Child state, it is still important that you allow them to say what they had planned. You may have to move into Nurturing Parent initially to engage them before moving to Adult state, when you can respond positively to their call. Just as Parent states can be useful so too can Child.

There are two ego states to Child

1)      Adapted

2)      Free

An Adapted Child state can manifest itself in either a positive way when the person is co-operative or negative when they show resistance to something.

A Free Child state can show straits of spontaneity or demonstrate immaturity.We all have experiences to draw on which will cause us to act in a Parent or Child states whichever our unconscious deems appropriate at the time. We may achieve the outcome we want and it may or may not serve us well in the long term.  We start using the Adult state at ten months old. The subsequent years provide more and more experiences for our unconscious minds to draw on. Though the Parent and Child states can serve us well, it is in the Adult state that most conflicts will be resolved to good effect and timely resolutions which may include negotiation, achieved.  Adopting Adult state to handle difficult customers will go a long way to supporting your intention of good customer service, with shorter and more productive call times.

Share This

Email and text messages have taken communication into a whole new dimension. They are fast, economical and in some instances enable friends to keep in touch far more frequently than the ‘pen pal process’ ever did. Could such marvellous inventions possibly have any downsides? Well, yes they do. Consider the process of communication. When we are talking face to face with someone we understand what they are saying by three channels:1)      watching body language, 2)      understanding the words used3)      listening to the way the words are said (pitch, tone, emphasis, pace and inflection).Statistics indicate that, when we communicate face to face, body language helps us understand 55%, words 7%, and the way the words are said 38% of the message. So what does this mean when we are interpreting written communication? We cannot see the originators body language therefore we cannot pick up on any of the clues body language gives us (55%), neither can we interpret a message by the way it’s being said, (38%). Fortunately something called punctuation was invented so the sender could visually demonstrate emphasis, tone, inflection etc, in the written word. Commas, exclamation marks, brackets, full stops and all those other small but highly effective symbols help us to fill in the blanks left when we are trying to interpret a written message and body language and verbal emotions are not available to assist us. Thank goodness for punctuation! Great! Except that when people text or email, grammar and punctuation seem to have gone out of the window which totally changes the meaning of a message.  

Here is a well known example of how that can happen. An English professor wrote thesewords on the chalkboard:A woman without her man is nothing and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.All of the males in the class wrote:         A woman, without her man, is nothing.

All the females in the class wrote:          A woman: without her, man is nothing.Punctuation is everything. So that leaves us with 7% of the words – let’s be thankful for small mercies! Ah! Well no, that’s not the case. How many quickly and carelessly sent texts or emails have left the reader scratching their head in a ball of frustration as they try to second guess what the sender was trying to say? Interpreting the mass of hieroglyphics that makes up the message leaves us wondering when the sender started working for MI5. Trying to decipher shortened text can add minutes to understanding what the sender is trying to say.   Where am I going with all of this you may be wondering? The world changes and we should be prepared to change with it and embrace technology. I agree with that sentiment. I would simply like to suggest that is no wonder that ‘poor communication’ continues to be blamed in the workplace for reducing the standard customer service, low morale, misunderstandings and mistakes some of which are very expensive.  One cannot dismiss the benefits email and text messages have brought to communication, but equally they have brought confusion, frustration and costly mistakes which could drastically be improved by taking time to compose the message carefully, and with thought.  When writing a business letter most people will take time with punctuation, spelling mistakes and its composition. Despite all of this it can still be misinterpreted. It seems though that when we write a text or email we consider it acceptable to forget all the attributes that help make the written word easily understood. We seem to have accepted that fast methods of communication can be discharged with fast input and limited attention to simple tools that would make the content sensible and legible. Is it any wonder we misinterpret instructions, guidelines, methods, and simple messages? Is it any wonder mistakes are made at great expense?   I believe it is the sender’s responsibility to ensure that the content of their message has been fully understood. Sadly, many of us seem to think that with the simple press of a button the responsibility of understanding the message now falls solely upon the recipient.  For years we have all poured scorn on legal documents because they are written in ways we don’t understand and now we have invented our own version. It just doesn’t take as long to compose!

Share This

Sue’s put together some tips on getting more information out of people when you’re marketing products in store.

Here’s the video:

And as ever, here are the notes in case you can’t view the video:

Hi, I’m Sue Abbiss from Beyond The Box, I’m a Field Marketing Manager. I’ve spoken about top tips for sales, and we mentioned open questions, so I’m going to talk a little bit about that.

Open questions require an answer, not just yes or no, so who, what, where, why, when.

If you were to ask a closed question for example “did you go to the pictures last night?” you would get a short yes/no answer. If you were to say “where did you go last night?”, they might give you more information.

So just remember, a good sales tip - use open questions - who, what, where, why, when - to gain information.

Share This

Motivate - understand ‘what make your staff tick’, get to know the person, what drives/motivates them, understand what de-motivates staff (working conditions, unfair treatment, poor policies) so you can avoid these. 

Opportunity - give your staff opportunities for advancement and the chance to develop themselves, as well as develop their role. Set goals and challenging targets to help staff advance 

Team building - arrange regular team meetings, communicate with all staff, keep them informed of any changes, or update 

Involvement - get staff involved; seek their opinions on the ongoing development and progress of their company 

Valued - believe in your people, make sure you let staff know that they are valued; focus on recognising excellent performance, send a letter or email thanking them for a job well done. Remember to send staff a birthday card.  

Empathy - show staff that you care about them and not just the job; take their feeling into consideration, understand that some times out side influence can affect their work.

Share This

As mentioned in our previous post about text and email communication skills, here is the list of resources to help with communicating by Email or Text.

Grammar Book

The GrammarBook Blog includes regular posts to help with common grammar and punctuation conundrums. The purpose of the blog is to promote the book, but the content is so good that you don’t mind the odd plug here and there. Here is one example of the videos they produce:

Visit GrammarBook.com for the full list of videos

The Grammar Blog

This site is devoted to real life Examples of Bad Grammar to help you avoid making the same mistakes.

Grammar Girl

The Grammar Girl Podcast is available via RSS, so you can improve your skills while you’re out and about; and the Blog has the transcripts with links to any references mentioned in each show.

Mind Tools

Mind Tools have a number of articles on the topic, including An Introduction to Communication Skills.

Cheese

This video has some important messages… It can be very easy to send an email without thinking of the implications. If you have some patience and can get over the cheese factor, have a look:

This one is from Telephone Doctor.

Eats Shoots & Leaves

This is a classic, and highly popular book by Lynne Truss.  They also have a punctuation game online.

More…

We’d be happy to update this list, so if you know of books, videos or websites that you’ve found useful or that you publish, please let us know.

Share This

Christine wrote an article about Communication Skills for Business Zone.

Here are the notes:

Email and text messages

Email and text messages have taken communication into a whole new dimension. They are fast, economical and in some instances enable friends to keep in touch far more frequently than the ‘pen pal process’ ever did. Could such marvellous inventions possibly have any downsides? Well, yes they do.

Punctuation

Punctuation was invented so the sender could visually demonstrate emphasis, tone, inflection etc, in the written word. Commas, exclamation marks, brackets, full stops and all those other small but highly effective symbols help us to fill in the blanks left when we are trying to interpret a written message and body language and verbal emotions are not available to assist us.

Thank goodness for punctuation! Great! Except that when people text or email, grammar and punctuation seem to have gone out of the window which totally changes the meaning of a message.

Examples Of Ambiguous Messages Without Punctuation

Here is a well known example of how that can happen. An English professor wrote these words on the chalkboard:

A woman without her man is nothing

and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All of the males in the class wrote: A woman, without her man, is nothing.

All the females in the class wrote: A woman: without her, man is nothing.
Punctuation is everything.

Business Implications

How many quickly and carelessly sent texts or emails have left the reader scratching their head in a ball of frustration as they try to second guess what the sender was trying to say?

No wonder that ‘poor communication’ continues to be blamed in the workplace for reducing the standard customer service, low morale, misunderstandings and mistakes some of which are very expensive.

One cannot dismiss the benefits email and text messages have brought to communication, but equally they have brought confusion, frustration and costly mistakes which could drastically be improved by taking time to compose the message carefully, and with thought.

Misinterpretation

When writing a business letter most people will take time with punctuation, spelling mistakes and its composition. Despite all of this it can still be misinterpreted. It seems though that when we write a text or email we consider it acceptable to forget all the attributes that help make the written word easily understood. We seem to have accepted that fast methods of communication can be discharged with fast input and limited attention to simple tools that would make the content sensible and legible.

It is the sender’s responsibility to ensure that the content of their message has been fully understood. Sadly, many of us seem to think that with the simple press of a button the responsibility of understanding the message now falls solely upon the recipient.

For years we have poured scorn on legal documents because they are written in ways we don’t understand and now we have invented our own version. It just doesn’t take as long to compose!

Resources

To help improve your written communication skills, you could take a communication skills course or swat up using some of the resources we’ve found on the Internet and in libraries.

Share This

Be specific Make sure your feedback is clear and focused on the performance and don’t personalise it. Explain what the problem is, why it important that the employee achieves the performance expected. If you have raised your concerns before about the same problem, remind the employee when you have pointed out the offence in the past. Simply telling them what was wrong won’t help them change their behaviour, discuss how the employee can improve or avoid the mistake in the future, get their input. Make sure you add a time frame when you want to see the improvement by.  

Give timely feedback. Make the individual aware of what they did as soon as you can after the event, so they can recall what as happened. However be aware of their emotional state, before you give the feedback, perhaps you may need to wait until the employee has calmed down and can think clearly about what has happened. But don’t wait days or weeks, to provide feedback, when the problem has become a distant memory and don’t save telling the person until you have your next meeting, this could turn your meetings into a negative event.  

Check understanding. When summarising back to the employee, avoid asking ‘Do you understand’ they may merely say ‘yes.’ Ask them to summarise back to you, what you want them to do to improve, and when you want to see the improvement by, this way you know that they have understood what was said.

Share This

Christine gives some tips to help improve your confidence when selling:

Here are the notes to go with this video in case you are unable to watch it:

How can ensure a sales person is confident to sell your brand instore

1. The first thing you need to do, is make sure they fully understand your brand values - This might be
   • key selling points
   • target market
   • ethical values
2. Next, make sure they fully understand your product. In order to do that, demonstrate it to them, let them use it so they understand good demonstration techniques that they can pass on to the customer.
3. Next, make sure they fully understand your key selling points. Whatever these selling points are, you’ve got to link them to benefits. There’s no point in talking to a customer about a feature - they need to know what will it do for me.
4. Finally - show them how easy it is to sell. Demonstrate how you would sell it, and go through a sales process so they feel totally comfortable, and can sell the product with confidence.

Share This