Case Example of Customer Empathy

'Paul', a medium sized business owner, had had all his Customer Satisfaction reports presented to him and yet still felt unconvinced by the 'satisfactory' picture they painted.

I helped him bypass all that and get straight to the heart of the matter with a small 'Empathy Insight' audit. It enabled him to experience for himself what it actually felt like to be his own customers, and even gave him an objective score out of 10 - an 'Empathy Index'.

As Paul had suspected (feared?), the experience really didn't feel as good as he knew it could be, and should be, but the Insight report gave him and his team enough emotional impetus and specific direction to start making a huge difference to the whole Customer Experience.

It gave him the tools to lead a huge internal change in the whole attitude towards his people and their customers, with a new vocabulary and understanding for customer emotions and empathy, as well, an objective 1-10 Empathy Index (rating) to both target and track progress in Customers feeling Good.

Primarily, Paul simply gave his staff permission to do whatever it took to be nice to their customers, and they loved it: "This is what we've been wanting all along!" they cried.

As a result, staff are feeling fantastic and customers are beginning to love doing business with them because the staff have now become caring, attentive, communicative and make it clear to each customer that they are truly valued. 

Paul is, at last, happy with the way his business is treating their customers and its effect (and that fact that he's now informed and in control of it), and, as you might expect:

• Sales are UP
• Customer Loyalty (Repeat Purchasing/ how long they stay) is UP 
• Staff Attrition is DOWN 
• Customer letters of Praise, Appreciation and Delight are now frequent
• and Customer referrals are way UP! 

Paul feels protected from the worst of the recession pressures, because he is now
winning the hearts (as well as the minds) of his customers...

Post Script about Paul

Paul also recognised that the Customer Experience revealed to him and his team by the Empathy Insight audit was actually reflecting and demonstrating a lot of their OWN attitudes towards business, staff and customers.  In this sense, his staff were simply 'following their leader'.

Basically, (and not too surprisingly) this meant management had to learn to start treating their own people the same way they wanted their people to treat their Customers; they realised they had to start winning the hearts (as well as the minds) of their own people too!