“Rapport is the pace, flow, compatibility, and comfort that exists in a conversation.” ~ Dave Cooke, The Sales Cooke
Engaging in a productive conversation which facilitates a free and easy exchange of thoughts, ideas, and information requires rapport. Just because you are able to engage someone in a conversation, does not mean you are engaging in an open and informative conversation.
Effective relationship building skills requires an established rapport between the parties. Without it, there is dialogue; but, there is little value, knowledge, information, or ideas of consequence in the conversation.
Take a look at the words applied in the definition to better understand how to effectively communicate with your clients:
1. Pace: There are a multitude of reasons why people talk at the pace they do. The danger is in stereotyping or mimicking the behavior. It is more important to determine the reason behind the behavior. That insight provides a better foundation for effective communication.
2. Flow: People choose a variety of styles to communicate–big words, small words, wordy sentences, short answers, etc. Paying attention to their communication style here, it provides you insight into their processes and how they tend to articulate their thoughts.
3. Compatibility: Every customer says something you can relate to. Pay attention to those commonalities. That is the foundation for establishing a relationship. You do not need to be like your customers, you simply need to find where you are compatible and build on it.
4. Comfort: There is a point in every productive conversation where your customers become comfortable with you. Recognize when that happens and identify what you did or said that resulted in that transition. For it was at that moment when you really established rapport and started building the relationship. Knowing that is your final indicator of those things that are most important to your audience.
Building or establishing rapport is simply not an exchange or a dialogue of words. Establishing rapport is utilizing the entire aspect of interactive communication to forge a connection. An effective communicator readily establishes a level of rapport. However, if you are not a good listener or observer of all the communication related behaviors, it takes much longer to facilitate the process. Start paying closer attention and your relationship building activities will improve significantly.