Stepping up your communications

Communication is important to our society to better understand each other. Understanding each other means we can be more compassionate. It can also help us to better understand our own-self, decrease social anxiety, it can help us to better understand our pet and also foster healthy relationships with others.

We can certainly see the progress of the Digital Age. More and more companies emerge. New products are being introduced to the market. More communities on the internet are being established to support products or certain companies. That is why communication is very important to ensure that every consumer is being catered and being informed. More companies invest in training their personnel to enhance their communication skills to increase productivity.

How to Step up your wordplay?

EAR Approach

SOURCE: EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: THE EAR APPROACH BY ALLY YATES

1. Engage/Empathize

Be perceptive in what’s happening with on your surrounding. Observe the emotions Notice visual cues such as changes in breathing, skin color, and physical posture.  Non-visual cues such as Vocal variation (pace, volume, pitch, and hesitation.)

Engaging and Empathizing means understanding and connecting with people around you. Putting yourself on the shoes of the others will help you to connect effectively.

2. Accept/Acknowledge

Learn to accept and acknowledge the facts, ideas, and emotions being presented to you. This can help you to give the impression that you are willing to listen and willing to help.

3. Respond/Resolution

Once you emphatized or acknowledged, this can help you to effectively provide your response or resolution to your customer, prospects, colleagues and friends.

Attitudinal Component 

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CONSUMER BEHAVIOR CHECK OUT CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, 11E (SIE) WITH CD

Attitude will also contribute to how people communicate. Each of us has a different behavior or personality that can be quite tricky. Attitude is made up of three components:

1. Affective Component, these are feelings and emotions about the attitude over the stimuli.
2. Behavioral Component, this is the component that shows the behavior when faced with the stimuli.
3. Cognitive Component, the thoughts, and beliefs one has about the stimuli. 

Applying EAR approach based on Attitude:

SOURCE

1. If Affective Component is manifested they are more emotional. This kind of customer or prospects can be handled thru empathy. If they know that you are feeling what they felt and understand them they can be swayed more by providing a more personalized statement that they can connect with. Emotional Appeals such as Fear, humor etc. will also work depending on the situation.eg. “I feel you(try to insert your same personal experience) + (resolution)
2. If Behavioral Component is present they tend to behave according to their beliefs or emotions as well. You need to check out what are their behavioral intentions and you also need to have certain skills in behavioral segmentation so you have a grasp on how you may respond. In most cases, you will need to acknowledge the ideas, thoughts and other attributes. You will need to use the acknowledgment statement eg. “I understand that (try to rephrase what was the prospect’s statement) + (solution/companies offerings)
3. If Cognitive Component is stronger than the other components it means that the prospect or customer is more rational based on the beliefs he or she has. Use acknowledgment statement such as “I see that you need + (rephrase the prospect’s statement) + (Explanation of offerings + benefit statement)

(To be updated)

This article first appeared on matteoooooodon.wordpress.com