Characteristics of Effective and Ineffective Listeners.

Effective listeners:

Focused, Responsive, Alert, Understanding, Caring, Empathetic, Unemotional, Interested, Patient, Cautious, Open.

Ineffective listeners:

Inattentive, Uncaring, Distracted, Unconcerned, Insentive, Smug/conceited, Emotionally involved, Self-centered, Judgmental, Disrganized, Defensive.

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Strategies for Improved Listening

Stop talking

Be prepared

Listen actively

Show a willingness to listen

Show empathy

Service recovery: Correcting something that has not gone as promised, by going the extra step of providing compensation for the customer’s inconvenience

Pay attention to every conversation you have for the rest of the day and notice when you were or were not practicing good listening skills. Then, that evening or the next morning, you should write down the certain circumstances that made you a good listener and not-so-good listener. Which factors in effective listening are brought up?