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Author - Rob Gemmell
Category - Marketing, Customer service, Small business
Posted - 03/21/2011
0 Comments | Add Comment Got empathy?: Tricks to making empathetic business decisions

Em-pa-thy. noun. : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.

Poor customer service = low empathy

Empathy is what separates people from robots. Being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes is a very important quality in maintaining healthy personal relationships. Not surprising, it's also important in maintaining and initiating relationships with your customers as well.

Is your business empathetic?

If your business is genuinely focused on the needs of your customers, you don’t need to buy ads and constantly remind them what your business does -- they’re already happily aware of it. If you're always putting their needs first, they're probably spreading positive word-of-mouth recommendations about you right now.

Does this sound like your business? Chances are, no. It's hard to be 100% empathetic when you have to consider the effects of the recession, employee salaries and making a profit.

How to make empathetic decisions

Thankfully, there are a few ways to infuse empathy into your current marketing efforts.
First of all, always think of your customers when making decisions -- especially ones that involve customer service, sales and marketing. Does a 60%-off coupon actually address your customers' needs? Sure, it might get them through the door to use the coupon, but what's at the root of their problems and needs? How can you solve their problem, and get them coming back again and again?

For business owners, you're often just too close your business (since you run it!) to put yourself in our customer’s shoes. Try these tricks to get closer to what your customers really want:

Poll yourself and staff. Ask yourself and your staff what kind of feedback you get about your business. (You can also check Yelp, Yahoo Local and other review sites.) What percentage of feedback is positive, and what percentage negative? If you really want to up your empathy, tackle all that negative feedback and prove it wrong! In the meantime, begin stressing what customers like best about you.
Calculate customer loyalty. Estimate the number of customers you have and how many are repeat customers. Focus on how to put your loyal customer first, because they put you first.
Conduct a 2-minute survey. If you have email addresses for your customers, send them a quick survey. Survey Monkey lets you create and distribute surveys for free. You'll want to keep your survey 4-6 questions long so customers actually fill it out. Plus, keeping it short will demonstrate your empathy too!

Hopefully, these tips will get you on the road to empathy enlightenment. Have you figured out some ways to make empathetic business decisions? Do share!

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