A bit about Listener Verification
Greetings 7Cups Community!
This is not an easy post to write, so everyone I request for you to please bear with me. This is relevant to both listeners and members, and for all members of the community.
I hope many of you are aware about the Listener Verification Program. I’ll start out by giving a short introduction to the VL program💜
The Verified Listener Program is an initiative to recognise dedication and efforts by listeners to ensure a high quality experience while improving their listening skills.
The current process of verification involves completing a specific number of 1-on-1 member chats, training guides and listener group chats. This is followed by a mock chat with a trained and experienced listener (a verifier or a mentor). The mock chat is scored for basic active listening skills, and those who pass are awarded with the VL badge.
Here’s a post(L) explaining the process in a bit more detail for anyone interested in verification. And if you want to get verified feel free to see this post(L).
Browser-
App- 
Members can see if a listener is verified by a purple tick (check mark) next to their username on a browser or app (as shown above). You can also filter for verified listeners in the Browse Listeners page. This can be done by clicking on the blue More Filters button to the right of the screen and by selecting the Verified Listeners checkbox.
In the app, the last filter can be turned on to only display verified listeners. 
The verifier’s team makes an effort to engage with the community, both on the listener and member side. We have received a great deal of feedback about how many verified listeners have been engaging in behaviours like ghosting, not really paying attention, and being unprofessional and disrespectful. This brings down overall listener quality. I am really sorry to hear about those experiences and I would like to address them through this post.
Firstly, let’s clarify what being a verified listener means and what kind of expectations the community expects them to uphold.
Connecting with a Verified Listener means that you are connecting with someone who has been confirmed by the community as having met a certain basic standard of quality that we have set for our volunteers. Each listener who completes the Verified Listener Mock Chat, regardless of passing or failing, receives feedback from their Verifier and from the Feedback Team pointing out which areas the listener could improve. Each listener, whether brand new to the site or a long-standing community leader, has room for improvement. Listeners failing to meet the basic standard are requested to reapply for verification and given feedback to work on their basic listening skills.
I would like to point out here that the mock chat performance of a listener may not be the same as their actual performance in chats. This is mainly because the listener is aware they are being assessed and their VL badge depends on it so they tend to give their best. Another point that I’d like the members to take into consideration is that in a real chat, scenarios may differ greatly from the mock chat. This might result in poor performance in a challenging chat.
When it comes to inappropriate behaviours like being abusive, asking for contact details, etc, “for all listeners” you are very welcome to take screenshots, block them, and report them via the blocking feature (describe what happened in the box there) or email community@7cups.com.
We also encourage you to review your listener. Positive reviews show up in a listener’s profile after a short delay (as you might have seen already). Constructive reviews do not show up, but the site leaders do look into them and take appropriate action. The listener is contacted and offered resources and support to improve their listening skills.
While writing a review, you can talk about the experience, and about what needs to be improved. Remember the more descriptive & constructive your review is, the easier it will be to take action according to it. Click here to read a lovely post on why you should leave a review for your listener, along with some tips for leaving reviews.
You can review by-
i) In a browser- clicking on the star in the top right
ii) In the app- clicking the menu on top right (the three dots)) and tapping review/rate your listener
If a verified listener is being inappropriate, then here’s the link to the Verified Listener report form which is used to track performance of verified listeners and take appropriate action. Feel free to find more information about it here.
A very important note for all listeners- Verification is the beginning of the listener journey. We strongly encourage all listeners to continue working on their active listening skills to ensure our members get quality support. Some ways to work on listening skills are connecting with a coach or mentor, exploring training guides and forum posts as well as trying out active listening tests.
As previously mentioned, the verification tick mark is a sign of basic knowledge of active listening skills and dedication. It’s like the beginning of the listening journey, not the end of the road. We encourage you to learn and grow as listeners here.
If you, as a listener, get a coaching email or message, we know that’s disheartening, but it means there is a scope for improvement. We can all try to strive towards helping our members better, and support them when they need it💜
Special thanks to my fellow VL team leaders @rachsxo @ASilentObserver and @SweetDreamer69 for helping me out with this post.
Please feel free to leave any questions or comments in this thread or PM a VL team leader.
Current Leaders are @ASilentObserver (admin oversight) and @LavenderHere (ambassador)💜
Thanks a lot for reading the post. Cheers!
Lavender💜
All links followed with (L) are links to listener only forums, unfortunately members will be unable to access them.
Edited by LavenderHere on 29 May to update team resources
@LavenderHere @rachsxo @ASilentObserver @SweetDreamer69
Oof so well written, thankyall for taking the time to address the concerns and making this post, sure is a great reminder and assurance for all of us, whether a listener or a member. ❤
I specially liked the "It’s like the beginning of the listening journey, not the end of the road." ~ Indeed quite true, there's always a room for improvement for everyone and we can try and keep doing our best to learn, improve, grow. ❤
Special cookies to Lav for posting this! 🍪🍪🍪
@LavenderHere
Hi Lavender! 😊❤️ Thank you so very much for this amazing forum post! This was incredibly well written my friend! Some of us might not understand these concepts so seeing your forum post is great. Some us may understand these concepts and completely but it's still great for all of us to get the gentle reminder of how we as listeners should behave in chats with our amazing teammates on the member side! *high fives* 😊 and *hugs* ❤️
@SparkyGizmo *high-fives and higs* yay I'm glad this post could serve as a lil clarification and reminder of important pointers hehe, and thank you for reading and responding, means a lot!!
@LavenderHere
❤️❤️❤️
@LavenderHere
Has anyone ever thought of a rule or requirement to prevent listener ghosting? For example, listeners are required to take chats at least once every certain number of weeks in order to keep their profile visible/active?
@Lockhart Yes, ghosting has been discussed at great length in the past. It was discovered that a few members were ghosting large numbers of listeners. To cut down on this, all members are now restricted to a certain number of chat requests each day. If I remember right, no specific action was taken to prevent listeners ghosting members.
As far as I know, listeners who have not been active in the last month cannot be found in Browse Listeners, but many listeners are active in ways other than taking chats. Some listener badges do require minimum numbers of chats each month.
Charlie
@Lockhart that's a valid point, but not all listeners help out via member chats, as @RarelyCharlie mentioned. Many help out via other site roles<3
As someone relatively new to the community discussions, I wasn't aware of the previous actions on ghosting, but thank you so much @RarelyCharlie for explaining. And also, on a listener's profile, it can always be checked if they have been active in the last week or month.
@LavenderHere @rachsxo @ASilentObserver @SweetDreamer69
So well written, thank you all for taking the time to address the worries you guys may have and making this post, sure is a great reminder and reassurance for everyone, whether a listener or a member.
*My* view on this particular subject would be: as listeners we are the same as anyone else on 7 cups but just with more understanding, compassion, training etc than members and we're all still learning too. If a listener did treat a member unacceptably I feel that the listener should give a reasoning why they acted like that and to apologise for their actions. I don't think it's as obvious as you think to "behave" in a "correct" way for some people but this doesn't excuse the fact that there's been some abuse/rude behaviour on here lately. I personally believe that it's not just us listeners that's causing this and that members do take a part in it too. Don't get me wrong it's so nice to have a reminder of support/advice from all of us fellow listeners!
My solution to "solve" this problem is:
I feel like listeners should have a say whether they did it or not, before they get a little reminder about how were meant to "behave". Us listeners should have a say too! I feel that because a member may not be happy/satisfied with a experience they got with that particular listener they may decide to leave a negative review and that affects us, our listening journey and our mental health. *this is only my opinion and don't mean offense to anyone*.
Let me know what you think about this!
Thank you to Lav for posting this and giving us all a little reminder!
@goldenLion1121
Hi Lion! 😊❤️ Thank you for your great contributions to the post! My friend, I hear you loud and clear! I think if a listener gets a negative written review/feedback that is less than constructive from a member (unwarranted, unfair), it can hurt and pretty badly, especially if the listener did everything within their power to even provide what might be seen in the eyes of 7 cups as what they are looking for, meaning "textbook" written responses and hitting all of the marks with timing(fast response rate) and empathy as well. There is no perfect chat though as there are two parties involved and someones perception is their reality.
I agree. There will be many times that a listener will be given a false negative review. No fun. Everyone that has had that happen to them, *raise your hand* lol 😊 Gizzie *raises hand* 😊
There are a couple of ways that I see things. One way is that I feel as if 7 cups takes this into account. I feel as if 7 cups knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt that these things will happen to good listeners that have done nothing wrong. I feel that by taking it into account, they give us some "padding" or "wiggle room" and if they didn't.....I have to wonder how any listener would still exist around here, hahaha. Some members ask you to do things that are clearly against the rules, you decline and then get a negative review and ergo the email.
Know thyself! If one were to receive that "dreaded email" and can walk the path and figure out the chat it was associated with, there could be value in it, if the feedback from the member was constructive. Again, "padding", "wiggle room", room to grow and learn.
There have been times when I got an email, knew 7 cups wasn't in the middle of the chat and that the email must happen as it's simply automatically generated with out the chat being reviewed. There were moments that I just "walked it off" knew this was the cost of "hanging out my shingle" and people will behave this way and you can't please all of the people, all of the time.
There were moments when I really considered what the member had to say through getting that email and it caused me pause and it gave the opportunity to grow and learn how to phrase things better. I even went to a mentor on my own accord, talked about it, did a mock chat and got a brand new shiny badge for doing so 😊. I like to turn negatives into positives at any available opportunity! 😊❤️😊
And now for the big one! There have been at times, and we are allowed to do so, that I have emailed community@7cups and asked for the entire chat to be reviewed for quality purposes. I gave in writing my agreement for my pm's to be reviewed. It's rare that I make a request like this as I don't want to bother others and I'd like to think that if someone see's me asking for help around here, oh, I'm being serious and it's a big, big problem. I have done this in the past when I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt this was clearly false reporting and done in the spirit of being mean and vindictive. You know, the person on the other side can get in trouble for creating a report that is clearly disingenuous.
Another way that I think about things is that many of the members that I cared for and provided quality listening for them also, well.........these were my hero's that evened the score when they decided to leave positive written reviews for me! ❤️ They cared about me just as much as I cared about them and they showed it by taking time out of their day to leave a positive written review for me!
Members are more powerful than they realize. They have the power to report in a negative fashion but they also have the power to reward good behavior. I have said over and over, sometimes our members can be our very best teachers either way. It's so easy for someone to complain about another. It takes a whole lot more to move a person to take time out of their day to report positivity.
It's an odd way to look at it, but I almost see it as my members who appreciated me, fought my battles for me with out even knowing that they were doing so! It was "get back time" and they didn't even know! lol *high fives* 😊 and big *hugs* ❤️
@SparkyGizmo thank you for putting it so beautifully and explaining it so well hehe...saw it after I made my post but you put it in such a detailed fashion hehe
@goldenLion1121 Thank you so much for reading and responding.
I hope that made sense.
@LavenderHere
Thank you for taking the time for writing such an exhaustive,, instructive and valuable explanation!
Going through the VL process is a great learning experience. Listeners study best practices as preparation, and just this preparation (in my experience) greatly increases our quality. Then we get feedback from a trained verifier after a realistic mock chat. This feedback orients us further to reinforce our weaker points, and so helps us get even better.
I suggest that Listener Verification should be required to access middle to high Listener Levels (not only "cheers".)
We shouldn't say a Listener (for example) is "Advanced", "Expert" or a "Master" if they have not been verified. Not to mention names like "Guru" or "Sage"...
I think the threshold might be around the "Intermediate" level.
This would promote that more Listeners go through the powerful learning experience of getting verified, it would give a better-founded meaning to the "Listener Levels" names, and would promote higher Listener quality in general.
I don't know if this proposal is feasible because I lack the data to confirm its feasibility.
The Level at which Listeners are required to get verified could be adjusted to the capabilities of the Listener Verification Team (in terms of listeners per month that achieve enough cheers for that Level).
Also, now that Quality Mentors can verify their mentees, every Listener that gets a Mentor can be verified.
The Listener Verification Program might be the most powerful tool for increasing listener quality.
Making it mandatory for moving upwards through the Levels would make many more Listeners go through the VL process, significantly impacting general Listener quality.
Thank you again for your great post!
@HealingTalk Thank you so much for replying and...in my opinion that is a very very good suggestion. Thanks for sharing, I am not aware of technical aspects of the site but I think it is worth considering, I'll be sure to pass it on to the other leaders @ASilentObserver and @rachsxo and I hope we are able to implement that.
@LavenderHere
I am glad that you liked the suggestion. so much.
And I am elated that you took it into such consideration as to pass it on to the leaders that could actually implement something like this.
Verification was a "before and after" moment to me. The anticipation of an exam (with the typical emotions this elicits) was a powerful incentive to study best practices. My evaluator was "kind to the person, strict with the issues", pointing with equanimity to both strengths and weaknesses, thus indicating things I had to improve that I had not noticed by myself.
It made me significantly better as a Listener, and all Members I talked to since, benefited from that.
"I have a dream" that at some point in their path, all Listeners go through this.
Both for "verification" that they deserve to be called "Advanced", "Expert", etc. (powerful words...) and for the great learning process that it is. To be required for an evaluation shouldn't be a shame for anyone. Even top athletes and singers need to be pointed to weaknesses that need work. There is always room for improvement even for the very best.
If my personal experience is a good measure, requiring Verification at some point in Listener careers would significantly improve average Listener quality in 7 Cups.
Thank you again, Lav, for taking the time to analyze my long answer to your great post, and for doing your best to see this proposal implemented (*crosses fingers* 😀)
@HealingTalk I can relate to that, the feedback you get during verification really is helpful, and now we have implemented an additional feedback program so listeners get feedback from team leaders post verification.
@LavenderHere
Thank you, Lav.
I agree 100% with all you say in your post.
I don't think anyone becomes Listener just for prestige. The main driver by far (except for a few trolls and other pesky annoyances) is the intrinsic motivation of helping others. Anyone that shares this motivation will gladly accept doing a reasonable activity, like Validation, that improves their effectiveness at that.
7 Cups (as most organizations staffed by volunteers) has also a well-developed extrinsic motivation system of prestige symbols made of badges, levels, roles, "featured leader" posts, etc.
We belong to the (very) social species Homo Sapiens Sapiens, hardwired to feel good about signs of social recognition. This system promotes further motivation for volunteers. Many humanitarian organizations take advantage of this in promoting their noble causes.
Extrinsic motivation contributes to giving even more energy to the organization to accomplish its mission, and also serves to promote the development of certain skills and traits by volunteers, who get recognition when they achieve them.
So using the already existing extrinsic motivation system, to promote the highest priorities of the organization, seems the right thing to do.
And Listener Quality is a top priority in 7 Cups, for very good reasons. Listener Quality translates into better support and less suffering for thousands, while bad quality has the opposite effect.
A topic for another post: how good it is that people that are isolated, stigmatized or marginalized in the brick-and-mortar world, find in 7 Cups a place where they get recognition and even "prestige" among peers, for their human qualities and their contribution to a great, great cause.
I know many cases of this and, for me, it is one of the greatest contributions of 7 Cups in the field of human dignity and mental health.
@LavenderHere I'm certain it is technically feasible (simple, in fact) to reserve the listener levels from Advanced onwards for verified listeners only.
However, it seems to me that doing that would further divide the listener community—on one side those who are primarily here to help people and who don't much care about status symbols, and on the other side those who are primarily here for status and who don't much care about helping people. (Of course, the dividing line is fuzzy and many listeners care about both to some extent.)
Charlie
@LavenderHere Long post with a lot of good information! Even so, I can think of a few things to add…
• The official name of the purple tick symbol is check mark:
• In the app, the check mark is white on a blue badge: (can't be displayed on the website, and maybe the forum will censor it)
• The check mark is not always displayed next to the listener's username. On the website it's only displayed in each listener's profile. In the app it's displayed on the Browse Listeners page and also in each listener's profile.
• In Browse Listeners the blue More Filters link on the website corresponds to the black Select Filters button in the app (at the top right). The name Select Filters is not displayed on the button, not even if you hover over it (this is a bug).
• Verified listeners have mostly not had their identities verified. As far as I know, if you want to find a listener whose identity has been verified, you have to look for an adult listener with a Teen badge (an "ATL"). On the Browse Listeners page you see "Listens to Teens & Over 18". (The "&" is just a bug.) You can also use this link to search for us: ATLs (I think the link might also work in the app, but I'm not certain.)
• Members who want to read listener-only (L) stuff in the forums can sign up for a listener account here: Become a Listener. There's no need to take any chats if you don't want to 😉
• It is hoped that verified listeners generally provide a higher quality experience to members, but some very skilled and experienced listeners choose not to become verified.
Charlie
In the app, the forum censored the check marks in that post, both the purple one and the white one on the blue badge 😒
And in the app the ATLs link doesn't work 🥴
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie Oopsie why did I come to your post so late hehe (me sorry)...please bear with a slow Lav
As a verified listener I would encourage my fellow listeners to let a member know if the topic being discussed has become uncomfortable. Most members are understanding, and they respect the honesty. There are rare times when that does not happen but ghosting is not helpful. It is through honesty and respect that listeners make a difference. We can’t know what the other person is going through. I appreciate all of my members for the things they teach me, even the ones who I am unable to help. Thank you for this post and our thoughtful leaders here at 7 Cups.
@MidwesternCalmSeeker
Well said my friend! *high fives* 😊 and *hugs* ❤️
@LavenderHere Thank you for the post. Some of the members here that I have known for quite awhile now been complaining about the unprofessionalism of some of the Listeners. 🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁 Hopefully, this post will change all that. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
By the way, you're awesome!!!! 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
@sweetrosa1987 I don't understand how this will change that.
I find it really concerning some of the behavior I have seen by some verified listeners, some who have been here a long time. If a listener asks to chat offsite really quickly, I highly suspect the reasons for that are to sext or worse. The way the behaviour points are set up do not address the imbalance of power and it seems like the only way to have an issue like that dealt with appropriately is if I were to agree, go offsite myself (against the results) and then get screenshots of what happened there.
@AffyAvo I broadly agree that having verified listeners probably doesn't do much to improve members' experiences overall.
I find it shocking to learn that there are listeners who ask to chat offsite really quickly, who have been here a long time doing that, and who are verified. I agree—that's really concerning. The current system can't be working.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie I find it extremely frustrating, as I can image if someone is willing to do this to someone who moderates the site in any capacity and understands how this site works, it must be incredibly common that they do this with newbies.
@sweetrosa1987 I hope that changes too, infact that negative feedback has led to me making this post. This post hopes to serve as a reminder, and that there is a long way to go. But on a sadder and more realistic note, more action is needed for sure.