Using listening skills to improve relationships.

1. How to Say No by Saying Yes
Improving Customer Service Through
Listening
By Kayci Barnett
CAL Para-librarian conference 2014

2. Ice Breakers

3. My Library Experience:
 Bachelors in Anthropology and a Minor in film
 I started working at a library because I figured if I went to grad school I
would have experience working at a library
 After several years of soul searching I discovered that I really loved working
in the library
 After I was hired as a circulation team leader, I decided to go for my MLS,
and received it in May 2013.
 Circulation Manager for Pueblo City County Library District since July 2013

4. Your Library Experience:
 work on the front lines?
 feel like customer service is a big part of your
job?
 feel pulled in several directions?
 have to enforce policies that your customers
don’t like?
 plan on staying in libraries?

5. What is the most important skill all Para-Librarians
could utilize no matter their position in the library?
Listening

6. Goals of this presentation:
 understand the importance of
listening
 learn the techniques of attentive
listening
 improve customer service skills

7. The Importance of Attentive Listening
Why it’s worth the effort it takes to change.

8. The higher your position the more important
your interpersonal skills become.

9. Listening is a transferable skill

10. Listening improves the quality of all
your relationships.

11. Attentive listening improves your
customer service.

12. Attentive listening reduces stress.

13. If listening has so many great
benefits, why is it so hard?
Roadblocks to listening

14. Noisy atmosphere

15. Prejudice

16. Our own agenda.

17. Multi tasking/Distractions

18. Speaking more prestigious.

19. Bad habits

20. Think faster than people speak.
How we communicate Infographic by Kristin Piombino facts:
 We listen to people at a rate of 125-250 words per minute, but think at
1,000-3,000 words per minute.
 Less than 2 percent of people have had any formal education on how to
listen.
 Images go into your long term memory, whereas words live in your short
term memory.

21. Steps to better listening
By a reformed pathetic listener

22. Stop whatever you are doing

23. Prepare to listen by taking a deep
breath

24. Give the speaker your full attention.

25. Listen carefully to what they are saying,
and body language if possible.

26. When they’ve finished paraphrase to ensure
you’ve heard them correctly.

27. Pin your interruptions.

28. Don’t give advice, unless paid or asked.

29. Practice

30. Steps to Attentive Listening

31. Listening and Customer Service
How to say no by saying yes.

32. Customers want 3 things:
The thing I
came for
Respect
Empathy

33. Empathy
Paraphrasing what the customer said will
give you a chance to say YES to at least
one thing – their feelings.

34. Respect
Stopping what you are doing and giving them your full
attention, makes the speaker feel respected.

35. The thing they came for…
Respond with I statements:
 I’m going to…
 I wish I could, but I can…
 I’d be thrilled to…

36. Listening in tough conditions

37. Experience didn’t match their
expectation

38. Steps to Attentive Listening

39. Listen for their message not their
delivery

40. Is their anything else?

41. Create a tally board for customers that
came in angry, but left happy.

42. Redirecting Ramblers

43. Role Playing – Customer Service
 A colleague rings for help, and you come out to see a long line of
customers.
 A customer asks if you will type up their resume for them.
 A customer owes late fees, and wants you to waive the charges.
 Your ideas…

44. For Further Study

45. Great books to improve your listening
and customer service
Nonviolent Communication
by Marshall Rosenberg, PhD
Peace is Every Step:
The Path of Mindfulness in
Everyday Life
by Thich Nhat Hanh
Great Customer Connections
by Richard Gallagher
The Zen of Listening
by Rebecca Shafir, M.A. CCC

46. Thank you for listening!!!
Questions or Comments?
The End