The Customer Experience: Inject Empathy into Everything You Do

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Sympathy doesn’t cut it. You need to relate to your audience in areal way.

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Empathy in business is about understanding and appreciating your customers and employees. The more you know about them and their needs, the better your interactions with them will be. Ultimately, this leads to a higher conversion rate, which leads to increased revenue.

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Empathy towards your customers leads to good business solutions

Understanding your customers and understanding how your business can help them is the key to customer satisfaction. Put yourself in the customer's shoes and ask yourself:

1)    What would you want from your company?

2)    How does it make me feel?

3)    What would make me want to keep buying from them?

These three questions will help you implement the right solutions. Once you know these things, you can prioritise which areas you need to focus on in order to serve your customers better and provide a solution for their pain points.

There might be something that isn’t currently offered by your business that your customers need or want. By leveraging  your knowledge of empathy these key offerings will become available.

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Get to know your customers and employees

A great way to gain insight is by allowing your team members to have a voice. Holding weekly or monthly meetings where employees can give feedback will help identify what’s working, what’s not, and ideas for improving your business. Ask for opinions on new products or services you’re looking to launch. Do they feel it will work?

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Nurture relationships with every interaction

Outsourcing companies such as Bourne Global train their staff to be thoughtful in all inter actions with customers.

Personal communications are key. It's not about just getting the job done. It's also about building a culture where people want to get the work done. Bourne Global prides itself on having an empowered professional workforce that strives to do more.

Research has shown that when it comes to empathy in customer service, it’s simply not enough to offer it situationally. Rather, it needs to be the common thread that’s woven into the fabric of every customer service interaction.

Customer service agents who are well trained to focus on improving their empathy skills will soon be able to pick up on a customer’s needs simply by sensing tension in their voice, or frustration in their tone. This will allow them to address situations before they escalate.

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How customer service empathy helps you stand out

We know that people don’t often judge their customer experience as a whole, but rather certain parts of a particular event define it as memorable — its peak moment and the end result.

This peak interaction with the customer plays a crucial role in your customer’s overall experience with your business. Essentially, how you deal with the most intense moment is key to your customer’s recollection of the event and whether it’s a positive or negative one.

Therefore, be sure that your customer support team maintains a friendly, valuable and empathetic approach from the start, throughout the peak and right through to the close of the interaction.

Ending each conversation on a positive note is something that a great customer service team will always deliver.

With consideration that 89% of businesses compete on the quality of customer service alone, the emphasis of empathy becomes a clear differentiator. It can be the difference between a positive and a negative peak; a loyal customer, or a competitor’s gain.

Offering great customer service is no longer just a ‘nice to have’ — it is fast becoming the key differentiator between business success and failure. Get in touch with Bourne Global today for more information on how outsourcing your customer support can grow your business. We’ll assess your needs and help you set up a professional outsourcing team that acts as an extension of your business.

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