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Rapid Rapport and Riches
October 18, 2007
The key to winning buyers and upping revenue may be the same device you use at parties to win friends—rapport. Neuro-Linguistic Programming Techniques (NLP) can make that interpersonal connection with customers.
By Dianne Durkin and Jeff Carlson
To grow any business, you need to strengthen customer relationships and build strategic sales partnerships. If you can do both these things, you'll create customer satisfaction, loyalty and referrals. The problem is figuring out how to do it. When motivational speeches by bleary-eyed consultants have failed, and the end-of-the-year bonus isn't enough to inspire profitability, lesser-known methods of boosting sales become intriguing. Among these other potential avenues to training success are Neuro-Linguistic Programming Techniques (NLP).
NLP is a behavioral technology created in the 1970s by Richard Brandler, a student of mathematics and Gestalt's Therapy, and John Grinder, a professor of linguistics at the University of California Santa Cruz. Neuro refers to the nervous system, through which we experience the five senses: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory. Linguistic is language and non-verbal communication systems that give our thoughts and emotions meaning. These include pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, and smells. We experience situations and our environment through our senses, and then represent that experience through language. Programming refers to communication with yourself and others to achieve desired outcomes.
The core of NLP is building rapport, a skill critical to customer service and sales professionals. When you have rapport, you have a feeling of commonality, which gives people comfort because they feel understood. Traditionally, customer service representatives built rapport by looking for common interests such as hobbies, geographic location, or family interests. They wanted the customer to be consciously aware they have something in common with their representative. The thing is, some customers don't want to talk about their personal interests. When you apply NLP to the process, the rapport is unconscious, immediate, and more effective.
Service reps and salespeople who have rapport with prospects express a genuine interest in their customer’s goals. To establish rapport, you must share comfort with the other person on three levels: physical (body language, voice, and language patterns); mental (shared interests and understanding of the business situation); and emotional (beliefs, values, and goals). When the rep and customer connect at these levels, they are "matched," a term used to define the moment rapport is achieved. For phone-based reps, voice is the key to making those connections. The rep needs to match his or her volume, pace, pitch, and intonation with those of the customer. That way, callers feel their emotional state has been understood and validated.
Reps usually are taught that if they stay calm during emotional situations, customers will feel respected. But according to NLP techniques, remaining calm makes the customer think his or her emotional state has not been understood. When reps match a customer's emotional intensity, specifically through voice tone, the caller feels validated, and the "crisis" is de-escalated.
At the same time, reps must be careful not to talk louder or faster than the customer. If they do, the caller may feel challenged. It's also critical to remember that matching the sound of their voice does not mean matching their emotional state. If a customer is angry, the intent isn’t to be angry in return, but rather to speak as loud and fast as they do.
Reps can test whether rapport has been established by adjusting their voice tone, a technique known as pacing and leading. If there's rapport, and customers are comfortable, they will adjust their own tone accordingly. It is an unconscious and hardwired physiological response. In addition to body language and voice tone, pacing and leading techniques also can affect physiological responses such as breathing patterns. This is helpful when you need to slow a person down to assess what they are trying to tell you, or if you are in a time crunch and need a fast resolution.
In face-to-face salesmanship, a combination of voice tone and body language (body positioning, eye contact, and gestures) affects rapport. During live interactions, approximately 55 percent of information is gathered from the other person's body language. If there is incongruence—when someone's body language is inconsistent with their words (i.e., appears angry yet says he or she is fine)—people usually interpret the true meaning of the communication from the body language.
When two people have rapport, and are comfortable with each other, their body language often is similar. They will pace and lead each other. When one person leans back, the other will follow. Pacing customers' body language during live interactions (in addition to matching voice tone) quickly establishes rapport. A mismatch that threatens rapport will occur if a customer is relaxed, and leaning back in his or her chair while the salesperson is rigid and leaning forward. Start with the basics—sitting vs. standing, leaning forward, or leaning back. You are doing it unconsciously with the people you are already in rapport with.
You also need to think about the language you use. We experience life through our senses, and some people have sensory preferences. They utilize some senses more heavily than others. The primary sensory preferences are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (touch). Most people favor their sense of vision, and use visual words to describe experiences. They might say something is "not clear," or they "don't see" where you're coming from. A person with an auditory sensory preference might say, "That sounds good," while a person with a kinesthetic preference would say, "This doesn't feel like the right solution for me," or "I don't have a grasp on that yet."
Most people choose language carefully, and tend to use specific words to describe their perceptions. When a customer uses a word or phrase, they have pictures, sounds, and feelings tied to it. Repeating the word gives them the sense you understand what that experience is like. You know what they saw, heard, and felt. But a rep needs to remember he or she is not the customer, and was not there. It is critical to ask more questions, and genuinely try to understand the caller's experience. Rapport is a great entry point, but there is more work to be done.
Dianne Durkin and Jeff Carlson are both with Loyalty Factor, a Portsmouth, NH-based training and consulting firm. Durkin is president, and Carlson is senior training consultant. To learn more about Loyalty Factor, visit www.loyaltyfactor.com.
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