CHAPTER 9
Beyond Words
If you understand the underlying mechanisms contributing to complaint-handling success, you will begin to see complaint handling as a puzzle. Just as every puzzle is different, every complaint is different. Some are easy, and others are complicated and not readily put together.
Remember, a message is being exchanged between you and your customer. Reading body language is a good skill to develop because sometimes the body says one thing and the words say another. When this happens, you need to pay close attention to body language.
Generally, body language speaks that person’s truth. As a result, we need to pay careful attention using our eyes. This chapter will look at different aspects of body language.
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What’s the Body Saying?
One of the most important details to look for when receiving feedback or a complaint is body language. As people say all the time, actions speak louder than words.
When we talk about body language, we are talking about body movement and how people say what they say.
LTIO: We’ve included three options. Try at least one.
1. Go people watching. Sit in a crowded plaza or go out to lunch or dinner and concentrate on other people’s body language. Be careful not to stare! Can you guess what they are talking about? Do you have a sense of what they are feeling?
2. Watch a movie or a television commercial you have not seen before without sound, closed captions, or subtitles. Can you figure out what is going on by focusing on what people say with their bodies?
3. Watch a silent movie, especially one starring Charlie Chaplin. We recommend either Modern Times or The Kid. You could also watch a movie with Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Brothers in it. They can be found on many streaming services and on YouTube. All of them are excellent videos that show the power of body language and can be found at www.ciag.online/63.
What three conclusions can you draw from the three exercises on the previous page? Have a discussion with a partner if you can so someone watches along with you.
It’s impossible not to communicate. We constantly communicate, even when we are not talking, as you saw in the exercises above.
The question to keep foremost in your mind is, What is my customer telling me beyond the words they are speaking? It is essential to look at body language to get a complete message. It helps solve the puzzle for understanding your customers.
LTIO: Think about and answer the following questions: How much attention do you pay to body language? How much significance do you give to this important part of communication? Do you ever find yourself saying, “But you said . . .” and the other person responds, “Yes, but what I meant was . . .”?
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Body Language Rules and Cues
Three rules will help you to interpret body language:
1. Look at the whole message, not just one part of the body.
2. Relate the message to the context. Is someone crossing their arms because it is cold or because they are withdrawing from you?
3. Look at a combination of three body movements in the same direction. For example, a person is clearly annoyed with how much time you are taking if their arms are crossed, they look annoyed, and they keep glancing at their watch.
Joe Navarro, an expert in body language and author of several books and videos about the topic, talks about comfort and discomfort and how these emotions show up in our body language. He explains why we bite our lips: it’s to calm down and is a substitute for sucking our thumb as we did when we were children.
Navarro also says we cover our ears when we hear something we don’t like. When we put our lips together, we’re saying something is wrong. We also move our lips to the side when we disagree. Navarro also talks about deception and how to spot it in “The Power of Nonverbal Communications—CMX Summit West 2015”: www.ciag.online/64.
LTIO: Wired produced an excellent series of videos with Navarro, which you can find here: www.ciag.online/64-b. Watch these videos and write down what the body language of the complainer is telling you.
Video 1’s body language:
Video 2’s body language:
Video 3’s body language:
Notes:
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Our Voice and Its Hidden Subtleties
The way we say what we say is important. Have you noticed that you can tell if a person is smiling or angry even while talking on the phone? As complaint handlers, we need to hear the subtext—to listen beyond the words. Your customer might say, “Yes, that solution is okay,” but they don’t mean it, and you can hear the difference.
Jim Clemente, a former FBI agent, explains how to detect lying and deception. You can see signs of deception not only by reading body language but also by listening to how people say what they say: www.ciag.online/65.
LTIO: Go to www.ciag.online/65-b and listen to the four different voice messages as if you were listening on the phone. Each message uses the same phrase. Your task is to indicate whether the speaker’s meaning is the same in all four messages. Write down your thoughts on the chart below while you listen to each of them.
Audio | What words are being said? | What emotions do you hear? |
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2 |
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3 |
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4 |
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Check to see if your notes coincide with ours at www.ciag.online/65-c.
LEARNING POINT: Sometimes it’s easy to perceive what the other person means beyond the words they use, especially when it is as obvious as in the audios shared above. In real life, however, it might be a little more difficult, but it’s a skill you can develop with practice. Start to pay attention to body language and voice intonation. Once that becomes a habit, you will find you are better able to detect the meaning behind the words.
Notes:
SELF-CHECK: Beyond Words
When looking at body language or listening to someone talking, what three rules should you observe?
When someone’s body language does not support the words they are saying, what should you give greater weight to? Why?
Remember the six basic emotions we covered in chapter 6: Happiness, surprise, disgust, anger, fear, and sadness? What do each of these sound like based on your own experience?
• Happiness sounds like _______________________________
• Surprise sounds like ________________________________
• Disgust sounds like _________________________________
• Anger sounds like __________________________________
• Fear sounds like ____________________________________
• Sadness sounds like _________________________________