The Practice of Conversational Listening
Words are powerful, aren’t they? In fact, words can act a lot like brands. When you hear a word, it conjures up an entire mental picture that is shaped, in part, by the culture and conversations around you. The meaning of certain words can also change over time as culture redefines them.
When you hear the word “listening”, what comes to mind?
Does your mental picture of “listening” look like a unidirectional & mostly observational activity or does it conjure up a picture of a two way conversation? Does listening require you to say something?
We talk a lot about the importance of a company developing the practice of listening (to the social web) for conversations about its brand. But what is listening?
In the first scenario, a company gathers online conversations about its brand, performs analysis, looks for insights, sends reports internally and perhaps makes recommendations on its findings. This certainly has value, but…
There is a better way.
Consider the goal of listening: Is it primarily informational or is it also relational?
When we think about this in the context of personal relationships between friends, do we set out to mainly gather information or do we see it as an important part of building the relationship?
Most people perceive someone who listens as someone who cares. This type of listening has to be visibly demonstrated; it is not passive or unidirectional. It is two-way listening. Message reception is not enough; the listener must respond.
It is conversational listening.
Conversational Listening Builds Relationships
One way data gathering is a stealth activity. You may be doing it to better listen to your customers and there is tremendous value in analyzing what you hear and acting upon it. Why stop there, however? Let customers see that you are listening by acknowledging them and strengthen your relationships too!
Conversational Listening Sends a Message
On the surface, listening seems to be about receiving. However, conversational listening sends a message: you are important to us.
Conversational Listening Personalizes Your Brand
A listening brand is an unmasked brand that is more personal and less institutional. As you listen & build trust, you will also increase the quality of the feedback you receive since people will share more openly when they observe true listening behavior.
Conversational Listening is Remarkable
So many customers are accustomed to dealing with brands that do not listen. The bar is so low that a responsive brand that actually takes the time to respond to customers is remarkable. It is an opportunity to delight customers.
The Power of Response
The online community’s awareness that you are actively listening will influence the conversation significantly. Your very presence changes the dynamics. Let people know you are listening.
If someone recommends your brand, say thank you. If someone asks a question, answer it publicly and you might even be answering several customers’ questions without knowing it. If someone complains, thank them for their feedback and seek to understand their experience. Ask clarifying questions. Apologize if the situation calls for it.
Then go even further and be a conversation starter. Ask open ended questions and learn. You will get to “hear” a lot more feedback when people know you are listening and that you genuinely want to hear what they have to say.
The Sixth Discipline
Remember Peter Senge’s BestSeller: The Fifth Discipline – The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization? Senge’s book focused on why the learning organization matters.
I think my book (don’t hold your breath) would focus on why the listening organization matters. The Sixth Discipline is conversational Listening - “The Art & Practice of the Listening Organization”. Besides, I have a thing for the number 6.
What do you think? In the scheme of things, how important is the listening organization? What are the issues with it?
Further reading on listening:
The Top 10 Reasons Brands Should Listen to Social Media
A Social Media Best Practice: The Value of Growing your Share of Conversation
February 12th, 2009 - Posted in Social Media | |
on February 12th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Marcel - excellent post. Listening is definitely a characteristic that companies should invest their time, energy, resources; and yes, software too : )
I would just add that “listening” without “acting” makes “listening” just another buzz word within social media. It’s like trying to listen to my wife while the Lakers game is on. It appears that I am listening but I really don’t hear a word she is saying.
So what do I do?
Turn off the game, listen to what she is saying and then go wash the dishes.
It’s the art of conversational “acting”.
on February 12th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
As a past president (and life member) of the International Listening Association (listen.org), I was intrigued when you tweeted about this blog post. And I became even more intrigued as I read through it.
The International Listening Association defines listening as the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages. This definition fits neatly with your idea of conversational listening. Listening is definitely part of a two-way (relational) process; eavesdropping/reading alone is not listening.
One thing I find quite interesting is how the popular (as in non-academic) definition of listening has evolved over the past few years. Whereas in years past the first stage in the listening process involved *hearing*, it now seems to involve hearing or *reading*. Why do you think this is so?
I look forward to continuing this conversation, especially as we near March, which is International Listening Awareness Month.
Barbara Nixon
Past President
International Listening Association
on February 12th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Thanks for the post- I followed your tweet as well.
I am heading up the active Listening for an affiliate network of social entrepreneurs (www.carbonadvicegroup.com) and love the concept of conversational listening. Already I have learned so much from both positive and negative blog posts about us and from being part of discussion forums around carbon offsets and social entrepreneurism.
I was most intrigued by your recommendation in the “Power of Response” that companies apologize if necessary- I agree, but this is such a departure from so many of my past company protocols!
Thank you for bringing the very human, very necessary element of active/conversational listening up in your post.
Scott
on February 12th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Excellent post.
“Passive listening” seems to be the mantra in social media nowadays and I fully agree that “Conversational listening” is what people should really focus on.
Anyway, social means relations and relations means participation.
Also, I think that before listening, companies should take a strategic step in defining what communities they want to listen to, engage with and which one they should ignore.
I wrote a short article on (to me) not so successful stories of Dell ideastorm and Obama ( http://blog.ecairn.com/2009/01/22/dell-ideastorm-and-obama/) where the results of listening without strategy and segmentation ends up in getting a biaised view or being victim on “social lobby”.
@ Barbara, I also found it interesting that listening is used in a context where people read and not hear and see (non verbal communication is also part of listening isn’t it?)
Best
Best
on February 13th, 2009 at 1:44 am
[…] Lebrun has a lovely post here about what actually constitutes listening, and he makes the point I was initially trying to make […]
on February 13th, 2009 at 11:46 am
@Michael - agreed. you certainly will get points from your wife for this comment
“Turn off the game, listen to what she is saying and then go wash the dishes.”
@Barabara - great question. I think it is because we are using the term “listening” more in a conceptual sense than in a physical sense. Even when it comes to listening (with your ears), the definition is broader than the act of hearing (goes to understanding, constructing meaning, responding, etc.) and this larger function can be accomplished through written text as well (perhaps not as effectively, but that would be an interesting discussion too).
@dominique - good analysis on IdeaStorm in your post or - more specifically - the more general idea of the value or private communities versus listening to the broader web, starting with strategy, etc. I do think IdeaStorm has been a very successful initiative for Dell because it has opened an important conversation with a large segment of their customers - even if it isn’t necessarily representative of their entire customer base. They have implemented specific ideas that they have received from the platform which has helped them better meet the needs of these customers. It is also another way for Dell to tell its customers that their ideas are important to Dell. The key is that Dell has several initiatives and engages broadly (including listening and engagement in the broader social web) - IdeaStorm is one part of their overall strategy.
on February 13th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Most of the pain in life is caused by distance from the truth. Of ourselves, our relationships, the situations in which we find ourselves.
So it is in business. To stop listening is to lose focus on the *objective, external truth,* and if there is a leading indicator for the demise of organizations, that is it.
Great post.
on February 16th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Marcel - as always, a well written and insightful post. While I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, it’s difficult to get companies to focus on the “listening” end of the social media equation. They hear about tools like blogs, podcasts, Facebook and Twitter, and want to immediately jump into the fray. Most are not interested in knowing the landscape of the conversations about their brands, or their competitors brands. I would suspect this is because most think they can “control” the message. Of course, we know better that the reality is more of message management. Getting companies to take a step back is difficult, and likely our most important task. Without this step, they are likely to not get any value out of it, and probably leave frustrated.
Thanks again for the post.
on March 3rd, 2009 at 2:34 pm
[…] is energized to take on the next challenges. We believe the work ahead rooted in us refining our conversational listening skills. We want to engage in conversations with […]
on March 6th, 2009 at 9:00 am
[…] A second change/development is the growing importance of engagement. Listening isn’t a one-way activity (I wrote about this recently - http://www.mediaphilosopher.com/2009/02/12/the-practice-of-conversational-listening) […]
on April 15th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
[…] http://www.mediaphilosopher.com/2009/02/12/the-practice-of-conversational-listening/ […]
on April 18th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
[…] Lebrun talks about the art of listening and how effective it can be for a company. On his blog mediaphilosopher he says, “On the surface, listening seems to be about receiving. However, conversational […]
on May 3rd, 2009 at 8:57 am
Excellent summary - listening empowers to start great conversations and relationships are built based on conversations.
on June 7th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
[…] way, you’re starting to put together what Marcel Lebrun would call a listening […]
on July 26th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
[…] Either way, you’re starting to put together what Marcel Lebrun would call alisteningprogram. […]