Empathy is a significant base for achieving the best customer experience. It’s an inherent skill for some customer service agents, while others may need empathy training for customer service. Clients will easily relate to the brand when the firm understands their needs. Additionally, empathy in call center results in outstanding customer service and guarantees a company returns clients since customers appreciate the attention and quick assistance.
So the first step towards improving customer experience is practicing empathy and understanding its role in making your clients comfortable with your brand. Let’s go through some ways a customer service team can build emotional connections with clients through empathy.
Why Is Empathy Important to Customers’ Experience?
Why is empathy important in communication, and what does it entail? Empathy involves understanding other people’s emotions by putting your own feelings aside. Therefore, customer service agents should understand when clients express themselves, even if they hold opposing opinions. Once you put yourself in the client’s shoes, it becomes easy to comprehend their concerns. Promoting customer service empathy boosts client loyalty and satisfaction.
How to Build Emotional Connections With Clients
Building an emotional connection with clients goes as far as learning their emotions and moods at every moment. It’s why some companies use social media customer support to help keep up with the clients’ needs. There are several ways businesses achieve empathy; let’s go through them and some empathy scenarios customer service can implement.
Acknowledge Your Clients’ Emotions
It may be hard to read your customers’ emotions, especially if you speak to them on the phone. However, you can tell their mood from their tonal variation. Once you understand the client’s mood, it becomes easy to be more empathetic. For example, suppose a client is angry about a particular service. In that case, it’s okay to put yourself in their position and picture if you would be angry too. By putting yourself in their shoe, it’ll be easier to relate to their complaint and provide solutions, resulting in empathy customer service.
Use Empathetic Statements
There are several statements that the customer service team can use to show that they understand their clients’ concerns. These statements usually go a long way in making the client feel that their concerns are valid and that their complaints are considered. An example of empathy in customer service is using statements such as “sorry to keep you waiting,” “you are right,” and “how may I help you.” An organization’s customer service team should not sound like they are following a script; someone should personalize their statements for every client. Then, customers will call frequently and may notice if the customer service agents follow a script.
Always Ask for Clients’ Feedback
Is empathy important when dealing with client feedback? Yes. Asking for your customer’s feedback gives you a clear picture of what they think about your products and services. Once you get the feedback, the firm can develop approaches matching clients’ needs, boosting customer experience. With client reviews, even customer service agents will have a deeper understanding of reviews and can find the best statements to handle a situation. Moreover, customers often feel appreciated when their voices are heard.
Personalize Interactions With Clients
While an organization would want to sound formal and meet key company objectives, keeping the clients in mind is also essential. The customers always come first; therefore, the customer service team should personalize every interaction with customers. Attending to one client at a time means listening to their concern and responding with relevant solutions and decisions. Giving the client a blanket answer may not be satisfactory and may lead to client frustration which will work against the company’s reputation.
Learn From Past Empathy Scenarios
Customer service teams deal with clients daily, whether o face-to-face or on the phone. Therefore, you must take lessons from your past experiences in managing different customer types. For example, you can hold meetings with your staff to discuss everyone’s experience and how they handled bad and good calls. From such customers, service teams can pick lessons on how to practice empathy for customer service.
Final Thoughts
Mostly, we want to rush through clients’ problems without understanding their emotions and the root of their problems. However, an organization’s operations should be customer-centric. Customer service teams need to work towards understanding the customer’s concerns by putting themselves in the client’s shoes. Empathy is a primary factor in boosting a customer’s experience and can be a company’s biggest investment. With the right statements, a little understanding can save your clients from their frustration and enhance contentment.