A lot of these posts are pretty interchangeable with any industry. You do a find/replace on “Design Technology Support” and replace it with a host of other job titles, and it will work. Honing the skill of listening is no different.
This is an essential ability to constantly be working on. You never get perfect at it, but you can get better.
Building empathy
First and foremost, properly listening to users lets them know that you are on their side, and listening is one of the easiest ways to do that. There’s another post on the importance of being on the same team. As a quick refresher, when the users know and understand that you are working with them, they are far more willing to take a chance on what might feel like an outlandish idea, or even better, they are ready to let it slide when you mess up (and you will mess up).
Understanding the issue
It’s quite frequent when a user comes up with a problem, that’s not really the problem. It takes good listening skills to start to peel…