Establishing Empathy and Rapport Copy
Empathy is commonly defined as one’s ability to recognize, perceive and directly experientially feel the emotion of another. As the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively understand another’s thoughts and mood.
Empathy is often characterized as the ability to “put oneself into another’s shoes”, or experience the outlook or emotions of another person.
Empathy can be reflected by:
- Paying attention
- Not interrupting
- Paraphrasing (repeating what the other person is saying and how they are feeling, using different words)
- Asking questions to clarify the point of view of the client
- Body language eg: maintain eye contact, open stance, and facial expression
Rapport is one of the most important features or characteristics of unconscious human interaction. It is often expressed as being in “sync”, or being on the same wavelength as the person you are talking to.
In order to establish an appropriate level of rapport with clients or customers real estate agents must understand all levels of communication.
Excellent real estate transactions are built on good communications, which are established by creating rapport with clients/customers.
To build rapport in real estate means to develop a relationship on mutual trust. By attempting to understand the client/customers situation (being empathetic) and the use of open body language the agent is able to establish rapport.
Empathy and trust are essential ingredients for developing solutions, winning and retaining business and avoiding or diffusing conflict. Empathy and trust are essential for handling complaints and retaining customers.
The ‘steps of the sale’ (persuasion, closing techniques, features and benefits etc) do not build rapport or relationships – empathy, trust, understanding and sympathetic communications do.
One-sided persuasion is not sustainable and is often insulting, especially when handling complaints. Trust and empathy are far more important in achieving and sustaining successful personal and business relationships.
A certain legacy of the days of the hard sell is that many consumers and business people are more reluctant to expose themselves to situations where they may be asked to make a decision.
This places extra pressure on the process of arriving at a deal, and very special skills are now needed to manage the situations in which business is done.
The Four Listening Styles
| Type | Purpose | Examples of responses |
| Attentive listening | To focus on the speaker,
Focus on the speaker by giving them your physical attention, Use your whole body and the environment you create to provide feedback that assures the speaker of your total attention.
|
“I hear what you are saying…”
“I understand…” |
| Encouraging listening | To invite the speaker to continue.
Indicates that the listener is willing to do more than listen. Provides feedback that invites speakers to say more and to disclose their thoughts and feelings. Use Open questions to encourage the person to share.
|
“I would like to hear how you feel…”
“Perhaps you would like to tell me….” |
| Reflecting listening | To mirror the feelings and content of the message,
Restates both the feeling and content of the speaker’s message to show that you understand Use the paraphrasing technique to this effectively.
|
“You seem concerned.”
“Sounds as if you are really….” |
| Active listening | To show empathy with the speaker. When you use active listening, you are giving the other person all your attention in order to understand their perspective, and to communicate your understanding. Active listening also lets speakers find their own understanding and insights.
|
“I understand how you feel…” |
Active Listening
Active listening is an intent “listening for meaning” in which the listener checks with the speaker to see that a statement has been correctly heard and understood. The goal of active listening is to improve mutual understanding.
When interacting, people often are not listening attentively to one another. They may be distracted, thinking about other things, or thinking about what they are going to say next, (the latter case is particularly true in conflict situations or disagreements).
Active listening is a structured way of listening and responding. It focuses attention on the speaker by suspending one’s own frame of reference and suspending judgement. These are important in order to fully attend to the speaker.
Active listening is a learned skill. As a skill listening can be improved with study and practice. Waiting quietly for one’s turn to talk is not listening. The importance of good communication is not primarily speaking or writing it is listening for needs and distinguishing needs from wants.
Active listening can be described as:
| A | Attentive to the client |
| C | Concentrate on the issue not the person |
| T | Target key points |
| I | Investigate with specific questions |
| V | Verify client needs |
| E | Energise the response |
It is also important to observe the other person’s behaviour and body language. Having heard, the listener may then paraphrase the speaker’s words. It is important to note that the listener is not necessarily agreeing with the speaker —simply stating what was said.
In emotionally charged communications, the listener may listen for feelings. Thus, rather than merely repeating what the speaker has said, the active listener might describe the underlying emotion (“you seem to feel angry” or “you seem to feel frustrated, is that because…?”).
Recognising your own Listening Style
Your own listening style is your preferred way of making sense out of the spoken messages you hear. Listeners tend to fall into one of four listening styles:
People-Oriented Listeners
People-oriented listeners tend to be comfortable with and skilled at listening to people’s feelings and emotions. They are likely to empathise and search for common areas of interest. People-oriented listeners seek strong interpersonal connections when listening to others.
Action-Oriented Listeners
An action-oriented listener prefers information that is well organized, brief, and error-free. An action-oriented listener doesn’t like the speaker to tell lengthy stories and digress, and may well be thinking: “Get to the point” or “What am I supposed to do with all this information?” when hearing a message filled with too many anecdotes or rambling, disorganized bits of information.
Action-oriented listeners want to know the point. Rather than taking the information they hear at face value, action-oriented listeners are more likely to reinterpret or evaluate the literal message to determine whether it is true or false.
Content-Oriented Listeners
Content-oriented listener, you are more comfortable listening to complex, detailed information than are people with other listening styles. A content-oriented listener hones in on the facts, details, and evidence in a message. In fact, if a message does have ample supporting evidence and specific details, the content-oriented listener is more likely to reject the message. Like the action-oriented listener, content-oriented listeners are also less apprehensive when communicating with others in group and interpersonal situations.
Content-oriented listeners make good judges or lawyers; they focus on issues and arguments and listen to see whether a conclusion that a speaker reaches is accurate or credible.
Time-Oriented Listeners
You’re a time-oriented listener if you like your messages delivered succinctly and quickly. Time-oriented listeners are keenly aware of how much time they have to listen. Their lives are filled with many things on their “to do” list; their “in basket” often overflows, so they want messages delivered quickly and briefly.
Whereas a people-oriented listener might enjoy spending time over a cup of coffee catching up on the day’s activities, a time-oriented listener is more like a drive-by listener. A time-oriented listener may think, “Give me what I need so I can keep on moving to my next task or to hear my next message,” “Don’t ramble, don’t digress, just get to the point quickly.”
Knowing your listening style can help you understand how to adapt to various listening situations, and you will quickly learn to recognise other people’s listening styles.
You may well find that their speaking style is the same – the people oriented will give you a long rambling speech, whereas the time oriented will say the same think in only 1/3 the number of words.
What is the Best Listening Style?
The best listening style depends on the listening situation and the communication context and objectives.
If, for example, you know that you are a time-oriented or action-oriented listener and your client is people-oriented, you will need to adjust both your speaking and listening styles to suit the circumstances to achieve the best result.
When speaking to an action-oriented listener, give the listener a brief preview of what you will be talking about. You could say, “Phil, there are three things I’d like to share with you.” Stick to that structure.
When speaking to a people-oriented listener, realise that he or she will feel rushed or hurried if you skip information about feelings or relationships. A people-oriented listener prefers to spend more time talking about emotions than do those with other listening styles. A time-oriented listener would like information summarised like a crisply written business memo punctuated with bullets and lists of essential information.
In a high-pressure, fast-paced role such as real estate, you may not feel that you want to take the time to listen to your clients’ stories, but adapting your listening style to suit your client will help you build rapport with them.
Listening Skills for Real Estate
By adapting our listening skills in real estate we can obtain answers to the important aspects of the transaction, namely the
- Needs of clients, and we can also
- Understand their wants, desires & dreams
This is vitally important is we are to maximise our business opportunities to list, sell and lease property It is a key component of “qualifying” clients, determining how much time should be spent with them, the follow up and eventual successful transaction.
The most important time in real estate communications is the initial encounter. In the initial meeting the client most wants and needs to tell the agent their story and then receive some information.
The client might not think of that ‘story-telling’ communication as a goal, but it almost always is an important need. Many clients have, in fact, been rehearsing their story for some time. Indeed your clients and customers have probably told friends, family and work colleagues of their intentions relating to property.
The agent must recognise this need and respond in a manner that creates a comfortable and transparent relationship, as that will be the foundation of all other communications.
Comprehending and remembering what your client says is of critical importance.
Whilst listening to the client or customer tell their story, the agent may need to verify points made by the client and often this is done using paraphrasing.
Receiving and Following Instructions
Receiving and acting upon instructions is an integral part of work. Real estate agents must be prepared to ask questions and to share ideas and information. In real estate, as in any other workplaces, agents need to be able to understand and follow instructions accurately; not doing so can have negative repercussions, legally, financially and personally.
In receiving and following instructions, agents should always:
- Listen carefully
- Ask questions
- Paraphrase to check your understanding
- Record information
- Provide written information if required
Under real estate legislation, the precise instructions given to an agent must be followed unless they are illegal. The agency agreement used to engage an agent forms the basis of this instruction.
You should therefore ensure that you receive any instructions from your principal (landlord or vendor) in writing.
If they phone and ask you to do something outside the agency agreement make sure you receive a signed written instruction.
If necessary, write the instruction into your file notes and then send it to the client with a request for it to be signed.
Inadequate Feedback
Inadequate feedback is often the result of listener inattention.
Communication needs to be a two-way process; if this is not happening, the environment may need to change in order to allow the two-way process to occur. Take people away from distractions, e.g. out of the office or into a quiet room, for important communication that requires feedback.
Listening Skills – A Summary
- Maintain appropriate eye contact with the speaker
- Orientate your body toward the speaker
- Lean forward to show interest in the speaker
- Use relaxed gestures to encourage the speaker to talk
- Do not interrupt the speaker
- Do not talk over the speaker
- Show you are following the speaker
- Pay attention and concentrate on what the speaker is saying
- Resist distractions from the surrounding environment
- Allow the speaker to talk at their own pace
- Encourage the speaker to talk by nodding your head
- Appear relaxed and receptive
- Take notes of key points made by the speaker
- Paraphrase what you understand the speaker’s main points to be and how the speaker is feeling
- Ask questions to clarify your understanding of the speaker
- Adjust a paraphrase that is not correct
- Listen for the meaning behind the words
- Listen for what is not said
- Do not pass judgment on the speaker’s appearance, accent etc
- Do not pass judgment on what the speaker says
- Manage emotions whilst listening: remain calm and attentive