EMPATHY AND EMOTIONAL CONNECT - CAN THEY LEAD TO CUSTOMER BENEFITS?

In recent times, we have heard a lot about showing empathy to customers and having an emotional connect with them in order to align with their feelings and sentiments better. In many cases across industries, these have resulted in customer complaint prevention, customer retention as well as more revenue per customer. However, there are customer situations or needs where empathy and emotional connect may not have the same positive impact. For example, if a customer has encountered a significant payment issue or financial fraud or defective / expired expensive product delivery, then immediate resolution of the complaint takes utmost priority instead of emotional connection. Many a times, we have seen customer service representatives trying to use empathy and emotion to cover up for their poor and ineffective service performance without realizing the context and implications. This shows the lack of awareness and understanding of many customer-facing personnel in the use of these CX traits for the right situation at the right moment.

Why we need to show empathy and connect emotionally with customers?

With the growing number of businesses offering the same product or service in the market with similar set of features and functionalities, the differentiating factors between the competitors from a functional dominance point of view are gradually diminishing. Today’s customers, thus, not only look for getting the right product or service but they also have a preference to interact with and buy from those businesses who are able to connect with them emotionally and, understand their feelings and touch their sentiments in a positive manner. While emotional connections enable businesses to create the necessary bonding and relationship for customer conversion and loyalty, empathy helps to reassure our care and understanding for the customers’ feelings from their perspective in times of frustration or concern. Some of the practical situations where emotional connection or empathy can create the right experience for customer success are highlighted below –

• Building brand attachment to enable potential customers make purchase decisions
• Learning more about your existing customer for personalization of product or service
• Driving the customer behavior and motivation through analysis of primary emotional state and need along with the data-driven decision making personality
• Making potential customers relate their current frustrations and challenges with the stories of your existing users
• Seeking customer feedback and endorsement post successful service delivery or problem resolution

So, why precisely do we need to show empathy or connect emotionally with customers through their journey of interactions? Some of the key objectives and thoughts for using these traits to customers have been summarized below –

• Customers get the feeling that their voices and perspectives are being heard with compassion and sincerity
• The authenticity of displaying our feelings resonates well in the minds of customers, thus developing trust and confidence
• We would be able to manage customer conflicts and influence greater customer engagement by acknowledging their frame of mind
• Existing customers continue to remain loyal and be in the relationship even with competitive offers from other businesses
• Emotional connection would lead to organic growth through word-of-mouth and advocacy by existing customers

How to make them effective in customer interaction?

As I have seen, effectiveness of empathy and emotional connection in delivering a positive experience depends not only on the situation, timing and context of the customer journey, but also on the mental state, attitude, belief and driving factors of the concerned individual. However, there are certain key considerations to tailor our messaging and demonstrate these traits, which, if deliberated appropriately, can improve their effectiveness during the customer interactions. These can be summarized as below –

• Are we targeting a short-term/quick win or a long-term relationship with customer?
• Is the customer only interested for a sounding board to vent out his/her frustration and grievance?
• Will it be apt to get into an emotional dialogue with the customer, considering the current state of mind and urgency of the issue or grievance?
• Does the customer have any past record of providing positive or negative feedback?
• Is the customer demonstrating an amicable behavior and storytelling attitude?
• Can we describe the customer as being data-driven rather than experience-driven?
• How is the customer responding or reacting to initial efforts of getting into his/her emotions?

Let’s find the linkage with both perceived and actual benefits

Empathy and emotional connection with potential and existing customers can manifest itself in many ways depending on multiple situational factors and pre-conceived notions, which are targeted to eventually create direct and indirect benefits for the businesses. The direct or real benefits can be in terms of one or more of the following –

• Increased likeliness of business continuity with existing customers
• Better spending of customers through purchasing of additional product/service
• Conversion of potential buyers to long-term customers
• Brand advocacy of existing customers in their respective network
• Improved bottom line and hence, business growth rate

On the other hand, they can also be linked to indirect or perceived benefits for the business, which can be summarized as below –

• Improved brand perception and customer ratings
• Conflict management to avoid customer escalation and negative publicity
• Customer behavior of tolerance and pardon even in time of slipups and errors
• Feeling of being valued and appreciated through individualized messaging and recommendation

To end with, we need to realize the true power of showing empathy and creating emotional connection effectively in transforming our transactional relationship with customers to trusted and loyal relationship, and nurture them on a continuous basis to sustain and grow our business in today’s competitive landscape.

Do you agree? Comment below with your thoughts and experience.