Why should you empathize with your customers ?
Empathy is the ability to genuinely understand and share the feelings of another person. Your customers want to be heard. Whether you are in Customer Service or Operations or Sales or in Marketing, it doesn’t matter. As far as the customer is concerned you are the voice of your Company and he expects you to solve his problems for which he needs to be first heard.
Let us take a look at why you should empathize with your customers and what are the benefits that will accrue to you in the short term and in the long term.
Why should you empathize with your customers:
- It helps build trust. And trust is the basic foundation for any business.
- It makes your customer think you have understood her problems and hence you will soon find a solution. So, she can continue using your product/service.
- It will help in retaining the customers.
- It will get your company another chance [last chance] to serve the customer and to try and make her happy.
- It leaves a good taste at the customers end and the customer may get emotionally attached to your brand.
- It shows you are human too and more importantly you are treating your customers like humans and not as a number [Cust ID].
- Your rapport with your customer develops. There is all possibility that the customer will remember you by name and come back to you in future for any issues or requirements.
- Cost of new customer acquisition is quite high compared to the cost of retaining existing customers.
- It may help you identify new avenues to cross-sell or up-sell. Or even build customer referrals.
- Customer experience [CX] is the new currency.
Happy Selling !!