Customer Service from the Heart: The Importance of Empathy

By Kristin Robertson

Customer service from the heart is service delivered with care, empathy, and yes, even with love. We know that this kind of service positively affects the bottom line of the companies that model, train, and encourage their employees to deliver service and support from the heart. Companies that truly care for their customers are generally more profitable than those that don’t.

Empathy is an important component of heartfelt customer service. Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes and walk that mile. It’s the ability to imagine what it’s like to experience what the other person is experiencing. My friend Susan Long knew about empathy. When she was a software support representative, customers would call her with very simple technical questions. She empathized with them by thinking how she would feel if she had to change the oil on her car by herself. She knew nothing about auto mechanics -- this was not her area of expertise. Susan figured she would have to call the mythical 1-800-Fix-a-Car and ask dumb questions about changing the oil. That’s empathy.

Empathy is essential in dealing with customers who are upset or angry.

It’s important to understand how the human brain works when people are highly emotional. The human brain is a complex organ, and scientists don’t yet comprehend all its mysteries. But we are beginning to map many of the brain’s functions and systems. We know that the Limbic System of the brain is both a primitive and powerful brain component. It’s primitive in that it’s evolutionarily no more sophisticated than the brain of an amphibian, such as a turtle. This “Turtle Brain” controls emotions in humans and is very powerful. When someone is emotional, they’re controlled by their Turtle Brain.

When you’re upset or angry, are you able to think clearly? Generally, we aren’t able to reason well when we’re in the throes of extreme emotions. This is because the Turtle Brain is a bully, and completely dominates the other part of the brain, called the neocortex, that governs our reasoning ability. It takes effort on the part of an emotional person to wrest control of the brain from the Turtle Brain and let the neocortex, or Rational Brain, take over. The passage of time helps this process, along with deep breathing and other means of self-regulation. As service providers, we can calm an angry customer by hastening the process of passing control of the customer’s brain from the limbic system (Turtle Brain) to the neocortex (Rational Brain). The technique that facilitates the transfer of brain power involves empathy. Expressing empathy to an upset person absorbs the emotion and that allows the agitated person to think more logically.

What’s in it for you as a service and support provider to empathize with a customer? Empathy can make the interaction with the emotional customer go more quickly, with more satisfying results for both you and the customer. Empathy allows you to connect with your customer, establish rapport, and create a sense of teamwork. Once customers realize you’re on their side, they’re more willing to work with you to fix the problem, or more willing to give you the time you need to resolve the issue. This makes the resolution process go more quickly because you’re working together with the customer. And, the cooperation of the customer ensures that the resolution will be better.

Empathizing is easy to do, once you know how. You can verbally express empathy with short statements that create the rapport you seek with customers. Simply put, you acknowledge the emotion that the customer feels. For example:
• “Gee, that’s awful. Please let me help you with that.”
• “You know, I’d be upset too, if that happened to me.”
• “That is really frustrating. I can understand how you feel.”

Warning: If you don’t deliver statements like these with sincerity in both your face and voice, you run the risk of being perceived as mocking the customer, and the situation will become worse than if you’d said nothing! This can be a challenge when confronted with an unsophisticated customer who has done something that may strike you, a seasoned expert, as funny. Needless to say, laughing at the customer is never advised. Instead, put on your most professional, respectful demeanor and empathize with the customer, saving choice words for later when you can laugh with your buddies about it.

Using empathy with customers can be difficult for some of us to remember to do. It can feel very unnatural at first, but with a few successes under your belt, you’ll feel the power of this technique. Once you’ve empathized with the customer, you can proceed to do what you do best, which is fixing the problem for the customer.

About the Author
Kristin Robertson, President of KR Consulting, Inc., is a consultant and trainer to the Help Desk and Technical Support profession. She helps companies increase the efficiency of their support center, save money, and increase their customer loyalty. As both a consultant and trainer, she has worked with companies such as 7-Eleven, Southwest Airlines, Hewlett Packard, Blockbuster and Washington Mutual. Kristin can be reached at 817-577-7030, or krisrob@krconsulting.com.

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