Listening Feedback on the Phone

Do you gesture when you speak? Most people do. Some people gesture so much that you’d think they couldn’t speak if you strapped their arms to their sides.

Do you gesture when you listen? Well, maybe not as much as you do when you speak, but as you listen you do send important visual information that indicates how much you’re tuned in and how much you understand when someone is speaking to you.

In fact, the speaker relies on your visual listening signals as a form of feedback, or a response to what they’re saying to you. Visual feedback is like a silent conversation taking place alongside the spoken conversation. A nod, for example, may indicate agreement while a raised eyebrow may indicate the opposite. Intense eye contact may indicate concentration while flickering eye contact may betray boredom.

Remove the visual feedback from conversation, however, and where are you? On the phone. It’s happened to you, I’m sure, that after your speech on the phone is met with silence on the other end, you have to check to see if the other person is still listening. Hello? Are you there?

You can prevent this by ensuring that the verbal feedback you provide on the phone compensates equally for the visual listening feedback that’s lost. You already do this to an extent without having to think about it. Short phrases and fillers like ‘yes’, ‘right’, and ‘I see’ are a natural part of telephone conversation.

Invest a little more effort as a listener and you can ensure that the feedback you provide on the phone is accurate. In addition to the short fillers you add, ask questions, paraphrase and summarize. This will make it easier for your speaker to interpret your feedback and verify the extent to which you’ve understood the spoken message.

The telephone is one of the most widely used business communication channels. That’s why providing and interpreting feedback over the phone accurately can improve greatly your business communications.