Often when companies listen to conversations on social networks, they don’t listen very well.
When marketers read critical remarks, they often formulate a response before they’re done reading. They assume that they have heard what the consumer has said many times before.
Rather than paying attention, they focus on how they can respond to restore the company’s reputation. Active listening is a disciplined approach to listening that focuses your attentions on the speaker. It requires a listener (marketer, in this case) to listen to the speaker (commenter). Thereafter, the listener is challenged to restate the speaker’s remarks back in their own words (via email to the commenter) BEFORE formulating (or posting) a response.
“Listening is perhaps the most essential neglected skill in business,” said Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li in the book Groundswell. “Part of the reason is that it’s always been so hard. The result was the narrowest form of listening — market research. But in the era of the groundswell, listening is easy. Not listening, on the other hand, is criminal.”
Instead of acting prematurely, it’s better for marketers to consider deploying active listening tactics:
- Do the research. Expend the effort it takes to understand commentor’s motivation. Attempt to identify the commentor and contact them descretely by email or phone to learn about their situations. Let them know your intent is to understand what happened.
- Avoid public confrontations. Never return insults or criticisms with insults and criticism. Always repond in a positive tone with the intent to understand the given situation. Before you correct misstatements, determined the source and related facts.
- Be transparent. Be honest and authentic. Don’t manufacture positive responses or comments using fake identities.
- Accept criticism gracefully. This encourages commentors to express criticism in forums where you can respond.
- Turn criticism into conversations. Marketers who demonstrate their willingness to accept criticism can often solicit recommendations and insights from commentors that improve the company’s products, services, and brand.
- Apply your learnings. After dealing appropriately with public comments, summarize what you’ve learned with others in your company. Determine whether improvements can be made to avoid negative comments in the future.
Deploying active listening techniques on social networks requires the added effort of tracking down a (by email or phone when possible) a commenter to learn details of each situation before posting a public response (if warranted).
There are many benefits to deploying active listening techniques on social networks. It forces marketers to listen attentively to customers; it reduces miscommunication and backlash; and, it puts customers into situations where they’re more likely to communicate openly about their experience.
Credits: Quote from Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li extracted from Groundswell. Illustration from the site toonpool.com, courtesy user731.
Active Listening in ‘Action!’
Hollywood provides some good examples of active listening. One of my favorites comes from the Movie Apollo 13, as they are brainstorming how to get the astronauts home. The facilitator becomes a listener and the participants bring the solution to live through conversation. Social media can work the same way.
About Troy Janisch