The three fundamental skills of active listening are parroting, paraphrasing, and feeling feedback. Clinical psychologists are trained to use these techniques to get their patients talking.
Wikipedia defines active listening as “a communication technique. Active listening requires the listener to understand, interpret, and evaluate what they hear. The ability to listen actively can improve personal relationships through reducing conflicts, strengthening cooperation, and fostering understanding.”
While Wikipedia divides active listening in to Repeating, Paraphrasing, and Reflecting as shown in this image, the techniques I use are Parroting, Paraphrasing, and Feeling Feedback. The only place we differ in substance is in the last technique, Reflecting vs. Feeling Feedback, where I strive to bring to the surface the underlying emotions of the person I’m talking to as opposed to just restating a sentence in my own words.
Parroting
Never use this technique twice in a row with the same prospect! This is active listening in its simplest form. You simply repeat the prospects sentence back to them, or, if it is a long sentence, just the last part.
Paraphrasing
A higher level of active listening. You repeat what the prospect said back to him, but in your own words. This should be your main method of active listening.
You can read more about this technique in a separate post: Active Listening Training – Paraphrasing.
Feeling Feedback
The most advanced of these three levels of active listening. Use with caution and only after you have mastered the other two forms of active listening. You paraphrase the prospects statement(s) while including a reference to an expressed or implied feeling.
Examples
| Prospect: “We need to add about 450 items to our e-commerce site.” TSR: “I see, you need to add an additional 450 items to your e-commerce site.” (parroting) |
| Prospect: “When it comes to IT support services, our president has never approved using a firm that doesn’t have its HQ locally and he made it quite clear that he never will.” TSR: “So, your president will never approve an agency that doesn’t’ have a local HQ.” (parroting) |
| Prospect: “I need warehouse maintenance software that can be installed without consultants.” TSR: “Ok. So, ease of installation is an important issue to you.” (paraphrasing) |
| Prospect: “We just made a major purchase, I don’t think we’ve got the budget for this.” TSR: “It seems cost is going to weigh heavily in your decision making process.” (paraphrasing) |
| Prospect: “I need to be certain that this software program has the versatility to adapt to the changing needs of our growing business.” TSR: “It sounds like you’re worried that the demands of your business might outgrow the capabilities of the system prematurely.” (feeling feedback) |
| Prospect: “I can’t wait for us to get a web-based training system online, it’s really going to radically change how we do things here.” TSR: “Great! You seem pretty excited about getting training onto the web.” (feeling feedback) |
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