"How can I help you ?"
Hey, once again... So just wondering, how do you respond to a question that let's say 95% of the listeners ask... "How can I help you?"
Because I'm not sure how do you respond to it, while I don't know how the person can help apart from just chatting about whatever a member/guest wants...
@BioStar
If you don't know what to answer, just say "Maybe you can help me figuring out how you could help me"
Works every time.
@justanemptynobody
Maybe for you that works I guess... But since I know what I want, I'm not sure how to answer when I get that question straight away :p maybe you guys need to learn listeners to not copy paste the tips that appear below the message ? xD
@BioStar
Oh, eh, no, it doesn't work for me. My answer would probably be more along the lines of "you probably can't help me but feel free to try and fail anyway"
Altough if you know what you want, might aswell simply ignore the question if it bothers you and say whatever else you wanna say, right ?
@justanemptynobody
yea pretty much that would be the answer to "How can I help you?" question :3 but yea I usually ignore it eitherway, but just wondering why doesn't 7 cups learn to finally teach listeners to make a proper chat... How hard can it be lol
@BioStar
Hello BioStar! Thanks for that excellent post. I can see how it might be confusing for a member, if you come to a Listener for help, and then they ask YOU how they can help you..?!
This is what I think from a Listener's perspective:
We start off our interactions with members as strangers. We don't know anything about the person's circumstances, the history of their problems, how sensitive & vulnerable they might be at the time of conversing, what they are expecting from the chat. The immediate problem for the Listener then, is "how do you help someone without knowing anything about them at all..?" So when a Listener asks "How can I help you?" what they are really hoping for, is for the member to volunteer some information about themselves, such as:
* What kind of problem you are experiencing that brought you to ask for their help
* What kind of things are you expecting from the chat (do you want some suggestions, or you just needed someone sympathetic to vent to, or you were just looking for a casual chat because you felt lonely)
The site does prompt the member to provide some information about these things with their general requests, but most members do not always fill them in. So keep in mind that members are experienced with their own problems because they have lived through them and know what's happening; but the Listener is completely in the dark and only knows what information you volunteer to tell them! At the very beginning they know nothing at all. Also remember, that we are limited to the information and text that appears on our screens only - we can't see the member's facial expressions, microexpressions, body language! We don't know if the person on the other side might be confused, or if the member thinks we are not being helpful, or if they have not understood our question. All the information we have to work with is what the member volunteers! So if you feel there's a miscommunication, or you need your Listener to be more specific, ask them to clarify their question, or their point. Tell them you don't understand something. Listener's for their part should also be more conscious of all these things too and do their best to bridge these gaps in communication and implement that awareness into their practice as Listeners.
FOR LISTENERS - I have found that the question "What brings you to 7 Cups today?" tends to allow the member to more specifically talk about what they expect from the Listener, and gives them the opportunity to discuss the specific problems that they are experiencing. It also gives you a small indication of how sensitive they feel about the subject, by how much information they disclose. Sometimes simply ask them "What do you expect from this chat today?" to guide them towards what they would like from you. We are asking these questions each time because we can't assume all members expect the same thing, or want the same kind of help.
All the best to you!
Kaspar x
@PowerOfPositivity
Yea I can agree with you on the most part... But don't you think they should start with like soft-ish way of asking how can the listener help me ? Like I can see it's a direct question, but I would think quite a bit of people would be confused to what to say to that, and would rather have a better answer if a listener asked in soft-ish way Like I'll post an example of dialog:
Listener: Hi, my name is (name), Welcome to 7 Cups, how are you today ? :)
Member: Hey, I'm not that well... (that is optional question) What about you ?
Listener: Oh, what's wrong ? I'm alright though, thanks for asking...
Or another type of answer
Member: Hey I'm alright, wbu ?
Listener: I'm alright, so is there anything you want to talk about today ? (or as you suggested) What brings you to 7 Cups today?
So what I usually get from 95% of the listeners is that question, and I think I can easily blame it on 7 Cups tips because newbie listeners look there and just say whatever it tells them so... I think it would be better a lot better if they would change that and make it a bit better and softer approach rather than direct one...
And yes I totally understand that listener doesn't know anything about why member is here, but at the same time if the member is sensitive or not, the listener still should have a soft and friendly approach right ?
Hmm to me this question isn't that weird. Just respond by explaining your situation. Don't think too much about whether they can help you but see it as an opening to start talking about your problems.
@supersilverjay
I know, and I been doing that, but I posted this because I wanted to see if we can actually change listeners a bit in a way that we all would feel comfortable here, because isn't feedback and ideas from us make this site to be better ?