Empathizing with Empathy

Empathy is the most overused word in a call center. Your Quality Analyst might notate on your evaluation that your call doesn’t have empathy. Your Team Leader might say that in a call she listened, it doesn’t have empathy. Some would even set an example as to how would you feel if that thing happened to you.

But what is empathy? Is something we really possess? If we possess it, how does it exude naturally? If you are in a call, can you mimic it?

Is empathy applicable to a call only or is it applicable to each one of us as an employee of a company as well?

Following are definition of Empathy in two different perspective,

Lifted from “A Whole New Mind: Why Right–Brainers Will Rule the Future” by Daniel Pink

Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position and to intuit what that person is feeling. It is the ability to stand in other’s shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts. It is something we do pretty much spontaneously, an act of instinct rather than the product of deliberation.

Empathy is a stunning act of imaginative derring–do, the ultimate virtual reality – climbing into another’s mind to experience the world from the person’s perspective.

Sympathy is feeling bad for someone else. It is feeling with someone else, sensing what it would be like to be that person.

Since empathy depends on emotion and since emotion is conveyed nonverbally, to enter another’s heart, you must begin the journey by looking into his face.

But empathy is much more than a vocational skill necessary for surviving twenty–first–century labor markets. It’s an ethic for living. It’s a means of understanding other human beings – as Darwin and Ekman found, a universal language that connects us beyond country or culture. Empathy makes us human. Empathy brings joy….Empathy is an essential part of living a life of meaning.

Lifted from “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lesson in Personal Change” by Stephen R. Covey

Empathic listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, and you understand how they feel.

The essence of empathic listening is not that you agree with someone; it’s that you fully, deeply, understand that person, emotionally as well as intellectually.

Empathic listening is so powerful because it gives you accurate data to work with. Instead of projecting your own autobiography and assuming thoughts, feelings, motives and interpretation, you’re dealing with the reality inside another person’s head and heart. You’re listening to understand. You’re focused on receiving the deep communication of another human soul.

When you can present your own ideas clearly, specifically, visually, and most important, contextually – in the context of a deep understanding of their paradigms and concerns – you significantly increase the credibility of your ideas.

Let’s face it.

We don’t care if the customer’s service was disconnected. We don’t care if the customer lost her phone. We don’t care if the customer’s money was debited from her card…..until it happens to us.

Empathy is something that exude from us unconsciously if we have a firsthand experience about it. If your money was debited from the ATM machine and you waited for 20 minutes on the phone to speak with a representative only to tell you that it will take 3 days before you can get your money back, you will feel the same for a customer who will be calling you with the same issue thus you will do everything to expedite the process for that customer because you know how it feels to wait for 3 days when you have bills to pay.

If you are on the line at McDonalds and the person in front of you is so undecided what to order and you are already hungry to death, you will be considerate when your turn comes because you know how it feels to wait online when the person in front of you is a “numb bitch” who don’t care about people.

There are times when empathy is being “unlearned” because the logic behind the situation doesn’t synchronize with the emotion for the scenario. The customer at the counter at McDonald’s logic is, “I’ve waited also kaya maghintay ka rin.” In this situation, what she doesn’t learn is the fact that others may not have the luxury of time as she has or another person may be about to faint because of hunger. The only way she will realize it is if it happens to her daughter or father. That’s the time she will be able to realize the consequences of her action.

Let us reverse the scenario this time. You are a type of person who doesn’t want to have debt. Your financial health is in good shape because you know how to handle your money properly. Suddenly, a customer calls in and told you, “I want to set up a payment arrangement because I wouldn’t get paid till next month.” As CSR, you check her eligibility and showed a series of delinquency and broken promises. You then informed the customer and she started yelling at you and hang up. Incidentally, your Team Leader is listening on the other line. She told you that you should have empathize with the customer so that she wouldn’t felt upset. The Team Leader could relate to the customer’s concern because she herself also is financially troubled.

On the production floor, oftentimes, empathy is not being displayed. From Operations Manager to Trainer to Team Leader, they would often say, you need to empathize with your customer whereas nagkamali ka, ang banat sa’yo, “Oh kasalanan ko na hindi mo alam?” Or “Di ba tinuro ko na sa’yo yan, hindi mo pa rin alam? Nag–training ka ba?” Or “Sino may sabi sayong i–transfer mo yan? kung ano yung sinabi ko yun ang gawin mo?””Tinatamad na ba magtrabaho?”

My, Gosh! What is this people? Animals from the jungle? This is also a case wherein they themselves already forgotten to be on agent’s shoes because they don’t have phone hours to be able to know the challenges of the account.

Empathy is a human emotion. Customer who is on the other side of the phone is human and the person who will be assisting him or her is also human. It’s a two way process and you have to meet at a certain level to resolve an issue together. Without this connection, the issue will never be resolved.