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How Critical is Empathy in the Customer Experience?
How important a role does empathy play in the customer experience? It depends on who you ask. (It also depends on who’s paying for the empathy program). A new research report conducted by Bodine & Co. and the Customer Experience Professionals Association, together with customer experience company Alida, has found extreme gaps between the theory and the practice of empathy.
The study, entitled, “Empathy in Action: The Business Value of Customer Empathy,” revealed that 91 percent of respondents personally believe empathy is necessary or helpful, while only 36 percent said their organizations agree that empathy is a necessity for customer experience (CX) improvements.
The study surveyed nearly 200 customer experience consultants and in-house practitioners to understand their views on the value of empathy in their work. When it comes to the notion of creating business value through empathy, 72 percent of in-house respondents noted that customer empathy is necessary to create business value, but only 30 percent said their organizations do.
“The past two years have shown us that empathy is essential and should be a core value in every single organization. The customer experience field has seen and believes in the benefits of empathy,” said Ross Wainwright, CEO of Alida. “However, our research has shown that there is a significant disconnect between how practitioners view the role of empathy in their day-to-day work and the role of empathy as a broader tool in their organizations to drive action and deliver business outcomes.”
The study went deeper, examining how customer experience practitioners perceived their organizations’ effectiveness at helping employees develop empathy. Just over half of respondents regarded their organizations as effective at helping senior leaders develop customer empathy. The reported efficacy was only slightly better when it came to middle management and staff-level employees. Additionally, over a third of the in-house practitioners said their organizations don’t understand the business value of customer empathy — and 65 percent stated that their organizations don’t measure it.
“Empathy is a deceptively simple word. The human connection it represents has woven itself into boardrooms and business meetings, team calls, and customer interviews,” noted Kerry Bodine of Bodine and Co. “While it can help us all better understand one another, our research has demonstrated the challenges and limitations of taking an emotion-based approach to CX programs. But there is a path forward — companies must balance the feelings evoked through customer insights with the actions colleagues can take for both improving the customer experience and driving business results. Our report provides a solution for an action-focused approach to customer empathy.”
Edited by Erik Linask