Why Is Empathy Important To Customer Success?

President of GMR Transcription Services, Inc., which provides highly accurate transcription and translation solutions.

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Empathy is foundational to creating a pleasant customer experience. When organizations have a keen commitment to understanding their customers’ experiences and empathizing with them, it increases the chance of those customers staying loyal to the brand.

Why is empathy vital to customer experience?

Empathy is the ability to sense others’ emotions, understand their perspective and envision what they might think or feel. According to research (subscription) by the Harvard Business Review, “The top 10 companies in the Global Empathy Index 2015 increased in value more than twice as much as the bottom 10 and generated 50% more earnings.” If your leadership team understands the necessity of empathy, they can help you ensure that it is noticeable in your business’s employee culture.

Empathy isn’t just about using the right phrases and statements; a customer care agent’s actions should show customers that their feelings, situation and motives are understood. This leads to trust and brand loyalty. For example, if a customer recognizes that a business offers consistently excellent customer service every time they shop, they are more likely to keep buying from you long-term, resulting in increased profits and an improved brand reputation for the business. Not empathizing with a customer and being incapable of understanding their situation can cost your organization a significant share of revenue and lead to the loss of business to competitors.

Organizations can introduce more empathy into their work culture in the following ways:

1. Listen—don’t just hear.

Hearing is a passive action, but listening involves intention and focus. Your customer care agents should listen carefully to what each customer says so the team can gauge that customer’s exact problem and any secondary problems they might not be conveying. Team members should maintain a calm stance so that customers feel comfortable sharing their issues. Teach your team to be polite, listen actively, recognize customers’ sentiments and helpfully search for the best results.

2. Acknowledge customers’ feelings and opinions.

It’s important to understand a customer’s mood during a conversation, identify the actual problem and offer a sympathetic and issue-resolving response. I recommend collecting and using customer feedback to learn where the greatest issues lie so your team can be aware of the most likely pain points a customer may need resolved. Acting on feedback also helps your consumers feel that your organization recognizes and values their opinions.

3. Personalize the experience.

Most customers appreciate having personalized experiences. You can usually initiate personalized interactions with a customer by addressing them by their name and being courteous during the entire session. Choose your words wisely and avoid using jargon.

4. Help, don’t just sell.

Your primary focus in listening to customers’ issues should be to help them. Avoid pushing a particular product or service. For example, my team focuses on understanding the customer’s problem and then offering a service or product that is best suited to resolve their issue. When done right, the entire process is seamless, and our agents are trained not to force an unnecessary sale.

5. Be concise and clear.

It’s best to train your customer service agents to be clear and concise in their interactions. Consider taking this to the next level by asking your agents to call a colleague for help if they aren’t clear about something. You could also communicate to the customer that you’ll get back to them to resolve their problems as soon as possible. Never overpromise anything that your brand cannot deliver, and refrain from giving long, pointless answers to simple questions.

6. Transcribe customer service calls.

As long as you state at the beginning that the call is being recorded, you can record and transcribe customer calls. These video or audio transcriptions can be used for multiple purposes, including sharing the transcripts among agents and throughout the new-hire onboarding process. This is an excellent tool for training your team on what should (or should not) be stated during a call. Reading call transcripts can also help your team identify their own strengths and weaknesses.

7. Use statements that express empathy.

Team members across the organization can use statements like the following to help build an overall culture of empathy and trust with customers.

• “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will get this fixed.”

• “I apologize that you had to deal with this.”

• “I realize how frustrating it is to wait so long for your order/service.”

• “I appreciate your patience.”

Along with the steps mentioned above, you can also use CRM software, audio-video transcription services, sentiment analysis tools and more to help agents learn how to incorporate empathy and improve their service. Remember that the current market puts equal emphasis on Intelligent Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ). Please don’t ignore the emotional connection with your customers, as it can adversely affect your brand’s reputation and business in the long run.

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