Empathic behavior and empathic employees are one of the essential success factors for extraordinary customer service. Knowing this, the big question is: How can your employees be more empathic? Are your employees empathic?

Adam Galinsky, a social psychologist at Northwestern University, reported about an exercise (see article "Your Boss Really is Clueless")that one could perform to find out the degree of empathy. Just ask somebody to draw a letter on his or her forehead. In which direction does it face? Is it written so that you can read it? Or is it written so that others can read it?

More than a decade of experiments have shown that people who write the E in a way that is legible to themselves but backwards to others have not thought or cared about how others might perceive the letter. On the other hand, people who draw the E backward to them but legible to others have considered another’s point of view.

Still, this is a nice exercise, how do you make empathic employee behavior real? How can empathy contribute for a remarkable customer experience?

Xavier from Notebooks.com provides a great example of a concrete manifestation of empathic employees providing extraordinary customer service. He shares his story of a broken Apple MacBook Pro and how he was treated in the Apple Store.

I was greeted by a very friendly Swiss Apple employee who was on his last day of training in the U.S. before returning to Zurich to help open a new Apple store. […] Obviously my MacBook Pro has already had its fair share of downtime and I don’t think it’s reasonable for a notebook to be subject to three major repairs within the first four months of purchase. He said he completely understood my frustration and asked one of the Genius Bar managers to assist.

The Genius Bar manager then asked me something that I’ve NEVER heard before from any computer customer service person. “What would be a satisfactory solution for you?,” he asked.

That might seem like a simple question, but it’s something that more companies should ask to resolve customers’ issues. It shows that they’re actually trying to solve your problem rather than just run you through their standard operating procedures.

I told him that all I wanted was to walk out of the store with a machine that I could count on and not have bring back for yet another repair. […]

This single question is such a powerful statement and shows that employees care about the customer and that he is taken serious. They are interested in the customer’s opinion and the desired outcome that he imagines.

But wait? What if I cannot deliver the customer’s desired solution?

Well there is always the risk that you might not be able to deliver your customer’s desired solution and meet his expectations, explain why you are not able to deliver the solution. If you have valid arguments, your customers will understand. However, without asking him directly, you always have to guess what the solution might be and the process towards a solution is much more complicated.

What are the implications for your organization?

There are probably extensive handbooks and trainings for “front-line” employees in your organization. They might include guidelines about replacement policies, dress code, and how employees should talk with customer, just to name a few. If these handbooks include the guideline to ask the question “What would be a satisfactory solution for you?” you are already on the right path, if they don’t include it then it is time to update your handbooks and training manuals.

 

Read  the full article My Apple Curse Strikes Again, but Apple Store Saves the Day

Read the full article Your Boss Really is Clueless or the complete research paper "Power and Perspectives Not Taken".

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