The Role of Empathy in Customer Experience

Customer satisfaction is central for the long term survival of any customer oriented business entity. Understanding its target customers, their composition, emotions, requirements, likes and dislikes, are some of the essential enablers for any organization in developing offerings, which will build a brand and ensure its customers’ loyalty. And when we talk of ‘understanding’ we talk of ‘empathy’. So, empathy is defined as the action of understanding, being sensitive and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts and experience of another person. It allows to step in someone else’s shoes and understand the emotions that other is feeling. Empathy can be practised at the organizational level and at individual (delivery point) level. At both levels, it will help to show the customer that they are valued and their concerns matter.

As per a 2020 statistics of US customer service, 89% of the companies compete on the quality of customer service alone and 48% of customers have stopped doing business with a company after poor experience. Hence, the need for providing good customer experience on a sustained basis, cannot be overemphasized. Empathy will help in understanding the customer needs, developing tailor-made products and improving the delivery channels. Thus empathy can play an important role in enhancing customer service and can be effectively used as a powerful tool for overall business development.

The course is designed to provide better understanding of various types of empathy and their application to different situations at work place, to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Week 1

Module 1: Empathy

1.1 Understanding empathy

1.2 Importance of empathy

1.3 Types of empathy

1.4 Empathic communication

Week 2

Module 2: Empathy at workplace

2.1 Role of empathy at workplace

2.2 Developing empathy

2.3 Downsides of Empathy

2.4 Brand, Bond and Beyond

Week 3

Module 3: Customer Experience

3.1 “He is not dependent on us”

3.2 Understanding customer experience

3.3 Empathy and customer centricity

Week 4

Module 4: Empathy and improved customer experience

4.1 Match the emotion and grab the opportunity

4.2 Designing the product

4.2.1 Designing Thinking

4.3 Building Trust

4.4 Customer Delight

Conclusion