Conflicts in customer relationship are inevitable. For this reason, the customer service department should adopt methods to resolve these situations and provide the best customer experience. One of these methods is to practice empathy in customer service.
But how to start? Is this technique really effective? Read this article to learn about the importance of empathy in customer service for the success of your department and company and how to implement it.
What is empathy?
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes, understanding and sharing their feelings and perspectives. It’s the ability to go beyond intellectual understanding and actually share other people’s feelings and experiences.
However, it doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything they feel or think. It’s about respecting their feelings and trying to understand what caused them. It’s about connecting with the other person on a deep human level.
Therefore, empathy is an important skill if you want to build and maintain strong, healthy relationships. It also helps you communicate effectively with others.
For example, it allows you to collaborate with others at work and helps you resolve conflicts peacefully.
Read more: 6 steps to conflict resolution in customer service
How does empathy contribute to service quality?
Now that you know what empathy is in customer service, you can see why it is the key to building real and lasting relationships with your customers. After all, conflict is inevitable in any business, but the way you handle it can turn a negative situation into an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with that customer.
See below other benefits of this strategy for your customer service, customer support and other departments:
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Deeply understand your customer
By actively listening and giving your customer full attention, without interruption, your team shows respect and genuine concern. In addition, empathy in customer service allows you to sense your customer’s emotions, such as frustration, joy or sadness.
This is essential for personalized service and conflict mitigation. Also, understanding your customer’s complete situation, goals, and the history of interactions with your company also allows you to provide more assertive service.
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Use effective and clear communication
By using empathetic communication in customer service, with clear language, you avoid misunderstandings and frustrations. It also includes phrases like “I understand why you feel disappointed” or “I can imagine how upset you must be.”
These words promote connection and trust. We also believe that maintaining a calm, polite and patient tone of voice contributes to a positive and productive dialogue.
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Encourage fast problem solving
When your agents act with empathy, it’s easier to understand the details of your customer’s problem, its causes, and its impact. You can also solve problems quickly by prioritizing their needs and well-being and working with other people and departments to find appropriate solutions.
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Strengthen customer relationship
As a result of the actions mentioned above, showing empathy in customer service builds trust and loyalty. This way, customers feel valued and respected by the company and can become brand advocates, recommending your products and services to other people. This effect builds a positive image and solid reputation of your business in the market.
How can you promote empathy in customer service?
As you’ve seen above, empathy has become a critical skill in customer service. If you still have questions about how to incorporate it into your team’s daily routine, check the tips below:
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Put the customer at the heart of your business as your organizational culture
To promote empathy, the customer must be at the heart of your organizational culture. Then, all decisions and actions must consider any potential impact on the customer and create a positive and consistent experience.
Therefore, invest in training that explores the concept of empathy in customer service, its benefits, and how to apply it in real customer service situations.
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Get to know your customer deeply
A deep understanding of your customers is critical to meeting their needs and expectations. Use tools to help you, such as market research and customer feedback.
Also, use open-ended questions that encourage customers to share details about their situation and needs. During the conversation, don’t forget to acknowledge and validate the customer’s emotions by showing empathy and understanding.
This way, you can obtain valuable insights about your customer’s behaviors and preferences.
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Be available to customers on their preferred channels
Customers expect their favorite brands to be available on their preferred channels, such as phone, email, online chat, social media, or other means. Therefore, ensuring an active and efficient presence on these channels demonstrates commitment and avoids inconvenience to customers.
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Adopt active listening
Active listening is a critical skill for promoting empathy in customer service. Therefore, avoid very technical language to ensure good understanding and don’t forget non-verbal communication.
Showing empathy through facial expressions, tone of voice, and appropriate posture will also positively impact this relationship.
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Manage emotion and conflict
In challenging situations, remain calm, respectful, and polite in your service. In addition, acknowledge and validate the customer’s feelings, even if you disagree with them.
Then work with them to find solutions, with a focus on peaceful resolution of the problem and customer satisfaction.
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Focus on finding a solution
Focusing on problem resolution means identifying problems and finding quick and effective solutions. Work with your customer to identify the cause of the problem and proactively present options to resolve it.
A focus on problem resolution shows competence and commitment, which can turn a negative experience into a positive one.
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Ask for customer feedback
Customer feedback is a powerful tool to improve customer service. Therefore, encourage customers to share their opinions and experiences and use this information to make adjustments and improvements to service processes.
How Milvus can contribute to empathy in customer service
Milvus is a customer service and IT management platform that can significantly improve empathy during interactions. This is possible because Milvus offers:
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Complete interaction history
With Milvus, agents have fast access to the customer’s complete interaction history. It includes all previous conversations, preferences, issues reported, and requests. This information is important because knowing the customer’s context and history contributes to a more personalized and empathetic service.
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Intelligent automated responses
Milvus offers intelligent automated responses that can provide useful information quickly and effectively, all with a human touch. It ensures that even automated responses are formulated with attention and understanding.
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Feedback and continuous improvement
Milvus collects and analyzes customer feedback, providing valuable insights about service effectiveness and areas for improvement. It allows the company to adjust its service strategies to better meet customer expectations and needs, promoting a more empathetic service.
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Multichannel service
The Milvus platform centralizes and organizes contacts received from multiple service channels, including WhatsApp, chat, phone, email, app, and others. This way, customers can choose the channel they prefer to contact your company.
Milvus ensures a more accessible and convenient service, which is key to improving empathy in customer service. Your team can also benefit from all the features designed to speed up service and improve relationships.
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Automation of repetitive tasks
By automating repetitive and operational tasks, Milvus frees up agents to focus on human and complex interactions. It allows agents to dedicate more time and attention to each customer, providing more empathetic and personalized service.
By integrating these features, Milvus helps companies deliver customer service that solves problems quickly and creates an emotional connection with customers, promoting empathy in every interaction.
To learn more about our platform and the features of our customer service system, contact Milvus now for a free trial.
