Managing Organizational Behavior 2nd Edition by Timothy Baldwin,Bill Bommer,Robert Rubin

Exercise 7

Actively Listening to Understand a Problem: Debrief
You work in the customer service department of a software manufacturer. You have already received a number of complaints regarding a product designed to help young people make their own home video productions. Now you are about to meet with a waiting customer who has had problems trying to use the product with his son. You are a bit annoyed in that you suspect that this guy either does not have the sufficient hardware capacity or is not using the product correctly, which is usually the case.
What traps or barriers could get in the way of really listening to this customer? What type of active listening would be warranted here-what strategies would you use? This could be a good chance to gather information that would be very useful to your marketing group. How do you make sure you engage this customer and truly listen and consider his perspective?