{"id":2646,"date":"2018-02-12T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T16:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=2646"},"modified":"2023-10-18T17:35:45","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T17:35:45","slug":"exercises-boost-empathy-customer-service-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/ca\/blog\/exercises-boost-empathy-customer-service-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Easy Exercises To Boost Empathy In Customer Service Teams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"<\/img><\/p>\n

Long before \u201cI feel you\u201d became a popular catchphrase in music and TV shows, some of the world\u2019s most successful organizations had recognized the power of empathy in customer service.<\/p>\n

At a bare minimum, most customers who reach out to a company with a problem expect sympathy — an expression of compassion for their predicaments and hardships. But empathy, where a company representative shows they\u2019ve actually tried to put themselves in the customer\u2019s shoes, is what often differentiates \u201cgreat\u201d customer service from merely \u201cgood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Empathy is about endeavoring to feel what the customer feels when they make a purchase, for example, then runs into glitches and finds themselves turning back to the vendor they bought it from and working it out. It means taking into account the fact that most of us have also had at least one bad experience in customer service. This could include waiting on the line at a contact centre, being passed around agents like a hot potato or failing to resolve our problem at all.<\/p>\n

Companies that use Service Cloud<\/a> have learned how to turn data about various service interactions into a competitive advantage by shortening the time to resolve problems and even predicting what kind of issues will be brought forward next. You can complement that by talking to your team about what it means to apply the data in the most empathetic way possible. It will reflect well on your organization\u2019s brand and, more importantly, elevate the experience on a customer-by-customer basis.<\/p>\n

The problem is, empathy may feel like more of a theoretical concept unless you use your imagination. Try a few of these exercises in your next staff meeting and see if there\u2019s an empathy gap in your organization that needs closing — or if there are team members with strong empathy skills that might deserve greater recognition:<\/p>\n

\u2018Time Regained\u2019<\/h3>\n

Customers understand that products and services won\u2019t always work as intended. They realize there\u2019s a learning curve on occasion. What\u2019s often most frustrating is the time they need to take from their already-busy schedules to make a call, complain via social media, write an email or make an in-person visit in order to explain what happened. Depending on the situation, a service interaction may be as short as a few minutes or — when you add up multiple engagements — more than an hour.<\/p>\n

Imagine for a moment you\u2019re the customer with a problem who has gone through the process of getting it fixed. If you could go back in time and avoid whatever steps it took, what would you do with those extra hours or minutes? Would you spend more time serving your own customers? Focus on prospects that could bring in new business? Maybe take an actual, full-hour lunch break rather than stay chained to your desk for the entire time?<\/p>\n

Have team members jot down as many ideas they can about what that time savings might look like to the average customer. It will reinforce why fast, quality service is so meaningful to customers, no matter where they work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould You Rather\u201d<\/h3>\n

If you have kids, they might already play a version of this game. \u201cWould you rather . . . go to the moon in a rocket, or explore the ocean in a submarine,\u201d they might ask each other. It\u2019s fun to compare and contrast in order to see what\u2019s one person\u2019s preference is versus another.<\/p>\n

In a customer service context, though, this is about thinking about how much customers historically loathe dealing with troubleshooting. Again, putting themselves in the customer\u2019s position, ask your team to rank their preferences along the following lines:<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you rather call our customer service department, or . . . \u201c<\/p>\n