“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Aww, that’s too bad.”
“Oh well, tough.”
The three phrases listed above simply do not cut it in the world of customer service. At no point should you or any of your associates rely on such phrases to connote empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand another person’s feelings and express a genuine concern. Expressing empathy adequately is an integral part of a strong customer service regimen. Without this ability, you stand the chance of losing customers.
Make no mistake about it. Customers want more than just products and services from the businesses they support. We’ve made that statement numerous times on the MeloTel Blog – and with good reason. You have a lot of competition out there, just as we do. More often than not, what sets your brand apart from its competitors is its ability to forge strong customer relationships.
Are you able to brighten your customers’ days?
Needless to say, your customers are people. And people have feelings. Those feelings won’t always be bright and rosy when you’re servicing the various individuals who make up your customer base. Are you able to relate to others’ bad moods? Are you able to cheer them up? Can you sympathize and offer solutions? Answering “yes” to these questions means you know how to adequately express empathy.
“Salespeople should understand and identify with the customer’s needs and communicate empathy for that individual,” insists Shauna Geraghty on TalkDesk.com, “This will facilitate effective problem solving, selling and upselling…Train salespeople to be able to think about the situation from the perspective of the customer. This will help the agents understand the feelings, needs and desires of the customer.”
Showing empathy will grow your customer relationships.
As if it hasn’t already been made obvious, it’s vital that you work on your customer relationships to ensure the long-term success of your business. Remember that your customers need to be able to trust you in order to come back to you. Repeat business is often predicated on whether or not you are able to make your customers happy. They can buy what you sell from a lot of different places. But can they receive the same experiences?
“Having a relationship with customers is proven to be linked with profitability, and we also have some evidence from research that there is direct correlation between empathy and productivity, as well as Average Handling Time (AHT),” points out CallCentreHelper.com, “The empathetic relationship with the customer enables callers to get to the issue much quicker and deal with it in a much more effective way, because they have built up that trust.”
What are some good examples of expressing empathy?
“I’ve been in your shoes and know exactly where you’re coming from.”
“If I was in your position, I’d feel the exact same way.”
“That’s awful. I know others who’ve had the same experience and know it was really rough on them.”
Your human clients require human responses. By expressing empathy, you’ll greatly enhance your brand image.
For a dose of MeloTel’s brand of customer service, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-888-MELOTEL or use the Live Chat feature on our website! Be sure to ask us about our cloud-hosted Commercial Phone Services.
