“Empathy fuels connection, sympathy drives disconnection. Rarely does an empathic response begin with ‘at least’.” ~ Brené Brown
by Mark Campanale, Digital Marketing Manager
No matter what the medium our customers choose to make contact with us – phone, web, social, e-mail, in-person – they are all looking for the same thing: to make life simple. We need to be problem solvers and to completely surpass our customer’s expectations, which will in turn lead to a positive, lasting impression. To put it in the most basic terms, we need to walk in our customer’s shoes. Yet before we can solve problems, we need to truly understand the nature and the story behind the problem we are solving. Moreover, we need to be able to identify with the customer’s situation; we don’t necessarily need to have experienced the exact issue, but we need to become reflective in order to share and experience what the customer is feeling at that moment. This trait is called empathy, and it is our most valuable asset in creating the ultimate customer experience.
Empathy is the capacity to understand and share the feelings of another person; the ability to feel what that person is experiencing and from their perspective. Customers and co-workers alike want their experience to be heard and understood. When
we truly understand each other, then a connection is born.
Consider a situation wherein you are coming to work with a crutch after a terrible accident. You see three coworkers approaching you, and then this exchange happens:
