Ignoring
The lowest level of listening is called ignoring – not listening at all. If you are distracted by anything while talking to a user, they can get the impression that you are ignoring them. For example, while the user is speaking, you start a conversation or interject a comment with another IT support tech. You are ignoring your user.
Pretend Listening
Pretend listening is most easily explained in the face-to-face conversation. You’re talking to the other person and they have that “backpacking in Brazil” look in their eyes. On the phone it happens when you say things like “I see” and “OK,” etc. while working on an unrelated email or playing a computer game. People can tell you’re distracted.
Selective Listening
During selective listening we pay attention to the speaker as long as they are talking about things we like or agree with. If they move on to other things we slip down to pretend listening or ignore them altogether.
Attentive Listening
Attentive listening occurs when we carefully listen to the other person, but while they are speaking we are deciding whether we agree or disagree, determining whether they are right or wrong. Instead of paying close attention to the other person, we’re formulating our response to what he or she is saying. At all four of these levels it should be evident that we are listening to our own perspective, and in most cases with the intent to respond from our experience.
The fifth level of listening is Empathic Listening Empathic listening, also known as empathetic listening is the the top level of listening. To be successful in providing IT support to end users, you must teach yourself to treat every call as though this is the first time you’ve ever heard this problem, even though you may have heard it many times before. Discipline yourself to see it through the eyes of the user. This is called empathic listening. Empathic listening is the highest level of listening, and the hardest to accomplish.