Are You Daring To Be Different? After All ‘This Is It!!’

‘This Is It!’ Not it could be it. It might be it one day. We will get round to it soon. We are quite good at it. We just do not have time for it. One day we might have ’it’ right. We don’t have the budget for it. Yes, management  might have got it.  We think the employees have all got it.

You may be asking; What is she on about? This is it? This is what? Are you talking verbal diarrhoea?

No, ‘This Is ‘It!’  Right now. Of course  it matters what your organisation writes or says it is going to do in the future, and what you put on your websites, blogs and advertising media. But what really matters is how your team members dare to be different and that they get on with it.  How they interact with their customers. But most of all are they doing it now? Are you telling them ‘This Is It!’

Be passionate, don’t just talk and advertise the passion and emotion, live it, do it now!

Too many organisations procrastinate and never get around to the point of ‘This Is It!’  Today’s economic climate is such that everyone is looking for the ‘It’. Many want to be spotted as different ‘Je vais faire la difference’ in our organisations, but few have the ‘ummph,’ stamina and innovation to be bold and carry it through. Now the Customer Experience and the Employee Experience are so inextricably linked, and the theme so self evident that  it often appears unnecessary and so slips elusively by.

Yet, does your organisation set out to create that culture that is designed perfectly to complement the customer experience or do you just discuss it!

For your culture to be great, positive and happy, your employees have to believe in it.. and this demands effort all of the time on stage and off with the greatest performance you can muster. Customer Experience training so often becomes one of those targets pushed to the back burner, shelved and then half heartedly followed through. You realise early on, this is not ‘It’ and you do not want to spend the budget  on ‘It’. Yet what you spend on the customer experience is in fact worth every penny.

It is amazing how many organisations talk about offering the best employee training or the best ideas, but  in essence it is too often watered down to the same old training as everybody else, a day here and a day more there.

No, this is not good, you don’t need to simply  perform well, you need to be ‘brilliant ‘ and perform now! Put your ‘Heart and Sole’ into’ it’ NOW!

In total all your commitment to your customers must be at that ‘ Heart and Sole’ of your business, from the inside out, and from the top down. Be imaginative, execute communication, establish the culture that NOW supports the desired Customer Experience and make it dominant.

“Why are you doing this?”

Perhaps you feel investing in the ‘soft stuff’ of Customer Experience is a waste of time and money?

No, No, No,  a thousand times No. Investing in the soft stuff produces hard results, whether in massively improved employee productivity, higher retention levels or greater customer satisfaction.   To sum up ‘Do It Now’

• Take ownership of your Customer Experience at all levels
• Hire leaders who ‘walk their talk’ now
• Avoid bureaucracy do away with procrastinators and their back offices
• Have an integrated strategy that Customer Experience and Brand are inseparable
• Employ passionate people and make the Employee Experience mirror the Customer Experience
• Measure Customer Experience not just Customer Satisfaction
• Be Innovative, and have an enduring ‘DNA’ in your organisation
• Clear focus and target your customers now –’ This Is It!’

Loyal Customers are high valued repeat customers and all as such want to be loyal customers– Go on enchant them, sparkle them and impress them.

And finally remember, if you haven’t done ‘It’  before, you can do ‘It’ now!  See the positive possibilities. Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination for your whole organisation.

Take a Leaf Out Of My 12 Year Old Daughter’s Blog and Send Your Customer Experience Soaring!

My 12 year old daughter Tolmeia – alias ‘Tolly Dolly Posh’ is a Fashion Blogger. Yes she is only 12, and yes she blogs a lot and it is her own work!   Check it out here.

Today the fruits of her success are written in an article in the Daily Telegraph dated 16th March 2013. ‘Wow’ at this young age that is pretty amazing and cool too!

You may ask why I am writing about her under the guise of Customer Experience, well I have realised that everything she talks about and everything she does in life is towards one goal; to be the best, the very best, to create a ‘wow’ and ‘rule the world’.

Since an early age, I have inspired my children to take every idea no matter how impossible they might seem and ‘dream’. The greatest ideas and success on business as in life can come from reaching out to the places where our conscious minds tell us things ‘can’t be done’.

Hear Radio 4′s PM programme interview Tolly on 23 March.

I have given my children the attitude to believe that nothing is impossible.

It is for this reason I am writing to share with you some really useful ideas and tips that if taken on board with send your Customer Experience not only soaring but to a new level that will surpass even your most ferocious rivals.

• Be Passionate – ‘TollyDollyPosh’ has a passion for everything she does, she is completely 100% committed to everything. Customers can tell a fake a mile off. If you do not have that real passion and commitment for your business, they won’t either – for sure.
• Celebrate success and loyalty big time. Tolly celebrates every win-win situation; she congratulates others and herself with great panache. Will your Customer’s still love you tomorrow? Loyalty demands consistency and participation at every level of your company.
• Accept Responsibility – Tolly has an intense love, and takes the responsibly of her blog seriously. Her readers are her responsibly and as such she cares for all of them. Customers need to feel loved and cherished; does your business have the commitment and responsibly to really care?
• Search, Tell and Publish Great Stories - Tolly is continually and consistently recalling her adventures in her blog. If you retell the great adventures in your business, tell consumers of your great products and story-tell your successes; you will open the gate for new connections and customers who will follow you to discover the next instalment.
• Involve your Customers and followers – Tolly has a constant following and truly involves them, asking for feedback and ideas that she can use to her benefit and those of her followers. Get your customers involved in new products and initiatives. Do not just reflect back the feedback they give afterwards. Involve them at every stage of the journey. Be creative in the ways you involve your customers.
• Think outside the box – Tolly is never afraid to think outside the realms of the norm. Whether it is in an outfit she creates or a company she decides to approach. She has the ‘guts’ to go ahead. Do the unusual with your Customers; do not be afraid to push the boundaries of what should be done. Go ahead and try it anyway!

And what you may ask is the purpose of sharing with you my daughter’s experiences? Well, I have the believe that the most important thing any adult can do for their child, or any leader or manager can do for his/her employees, any event can do for its audience is to inspire them; to share their passion and demonstrate how you can use it to create the greatest Customer Experience they can muster! Are you passing on this passion?

If you would like help to get your Customer Experience ‘soaring’, email me at cheryl.gregory@thecustomersshoes.com

5 Positive Traits Your Team Leaders Can Follow To Create ‘Great’ In Your Organisation.

1. Reward and Acknowledge. As a leader you firstly need to respect your team players. Make sure you recognise them for the work they do. Believe that they should be rewarded for ‘doing their job’. It is worthwhile and they should know they are making a difference.

‘Motivation and inspiration energize people, not by pushing them in the right direction as control mechanisms do but by satisfying basic human needs for achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, a feeling of control over one’s life, and the ability to live up to one’s ideals. Such feelings touch us deeply and elicit a powerful response’- John Kotter.

2. Feedback the art of being a great communicator. This should be constant, positive and proactive. Do not wait until a problem needs solving before giving feedback, it should be part of your daily/weekly dialogue with your team. Every team player is unique to the next and so treat them as such. Make sure this proactive, positive feedback serves as the greatest chance to make improvements in your organisation.

‘A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn’t like the tune’. – Anonymous.

3. Be aware of your leadership style. Are you being as effective as you imagine? Be constantly critical with yourself and build upon areas that you feel will benefit and encourage those you are leading. Do not be too proud to make mistakes. It is these mistakes that help us grow and create that great unique leadership style of your own. Decisions that come from a multitude of experiences and encounters and unseen failures are the best ones to draw upon in any leadership role, whether large or small. Leaders hold the position of power or authority but those who lead inspire us.

‘The boss drives people; the leader coaches them. The boss depends on authority; the leader on good will. The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm. The boss says I; the leader says WE. The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. The boss says, GO; the leader says Lets GO!’ – H. Gordon Selfridge.

4. Take time to encourage and grow team camaraderie. It is important to know and understand the needs of your team and be there as a foothold for them to step up to when they need some help or advice. Make sure you are the first point of contact for them. Know what to do and when, and when to expedite the talent you have around you at any one time. It will take time and energy to know your team well and understand their thought patterns, invest in this time. It will reap rewards over and above what you have hoped for.

‘Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success’. – Henry Ford.

5. Use your leadership skills and past experiences to challenge your teams to think and stretch them to reach for more. More importantly believe what you do and why you do it. If you are this type of leader you will keep your team one step ahead and give them the confidence and tools to grow.

‘Leaders are the ones who keep faith with the past, keep step with the present, and keep the promise to posterity’.

For more interesting reading on Leadership see;
http://bit.ly/15ygaDF
http://bit.ly/Z2Ki5j

If you need help with motivating your Team Leaders give us a call on Tel: +44(0)845 5480228 or email us at measureup@thecustomersshoes.com

If You Aren’t Totally Bananas About Tumblr – Don’t Bother Working For Them!

This is surely one of those ‘ Fabulous’ companies that really seem to have got the Customer and Employee Experience right – more than right; great, innovative, fun to work for, exciting – from the time you walk through the door to the time you leave at the end of each day, a dream job!

‘Tumblr ‘is a household name with a well-loved product, recognised worldwide. The amount of people who use Tumblr is rapidly growing and the company is ever ready to take on the challenge of ‘massive’.

Tumblr has really taken on a role that is quite unique in order to improve the Customer Experience – ‘Evangelism’. They take on employees that will follow them to share, promote, live and breathe the wonders of Tumblr. You have to be completely passionate about Tumblr, even to the extent that at interview the candidates are asked to do a presentation pitching Tumblr in front of the interviewers.

What this customer focussed brand is looking for is the unique passion and slightly weird unusualness of the prospective employee, a zest for life and love of the product. This uniqueness makes a person a fit for Tumblr.

The employees are treated second to none and the perks are over and way beyond the call of duty. From the refrigerator covered in art work in the office, to the corporate healthcare, to the away days of fun. Trust and loyalty play an integral and critical part in the company’s agenda and approach to their staff, and staff training in order to deliver a great employee experience.

The difference between organisations who live and breathe employee and customer experience excellence, and those who are indifferent, bland and portray mediocrity really lies in one critical distinction – the willingness, drive and passion to always go that extra mile and exceed all expectations in everything they do.

Organisations must take that step forward and be ‘extraordinary’. After all, ordinary efforts produce ordinary results. Whether you are the managing director, director, team leader or a team player, those that achieve sustainable success, do everything humanly possible to continually offer more and a better employee and customer experience, increasing value and a exceptional ‘stage performance, to exceed all expectations.

Take a few minutes to reconsider how you can redeliver a fun, enjoyable and engaging experience in your organisation, it will be a fantastic and rewarding experience not only for your employees but your customer loyalty too!

To learn more about Tumblr read the article on Mashable.

Do Yourself And Everyone In Your Weekly Team Meeting On Customer Experience A Favour – Remove The ‘Absurd’ Phases From Your Vocabulary..

Companies often harbour their own acronyms and buzzwords (so-called business jargon). Common doctrine dictates that if you know what you’re talking about, you’ll talk about it. You won’t fall back on vague catch phrases.

This is kind of ironic and unfortunate, considering most people pull out the jargon to sound smart, in-the-know, and high level.

Some all too familiar ones in the business community are; Core Competency, Buy-In, Corporate Values, Best Practice, Boil the Ocean, Take It To The Next Level, It Is What It Is, Value Add… The list goes on.

Given the vast amount of messages we send and receive every day, it makes sense that humans try to find a short cut to communicate what they are trying to relay. This jargon consists of all the unfamiliar terms, abstract words, non existent words, acronyms, and abbreviations, with an occasional euphemism thrown in for good measure.

Jargon might seem like a good thing—an effectively quick communicator, but in actual fact the message can get obscured. Adopt an attitude of getting rid once and for all of these often insufferable buzzwords, euphemisms, clichés and grammatical catastrophes. See this video.

In my opinion, my advice would be for you to avoid all of these banal phrases and find a more authentic way of talking and thinking about the problems you’re facing, and their resolve.

To transform and create a culture your customer’s will both understand and remain loyal to, your organisation needs to send consistently strong messages to touch every part of your business in a clear and precise fashion.

So, drop those phases and get ‘talking’!

See Forbes 31 Excuses Leaders Use To Avoid Understanding Their Customers (And How To Get Rid Of Them)

Building A Brand Is No Longer Enough–You Must Create A Movement

I often read articles for Fast Company and find them very thought provoking and interesting. I came across this one today;‘Building A Brand Is No Longer Enough–You Must Create A Movement’ by Austin Allison.

In my opinion brands that provide enjoyment are already showing the way of success now and in our future. Brands are already taking the dullness out of the workplace. Fun is a great way of enhancing the Customer Experience, associating fun with the brand also attempts to create the emotional connection between the consumer and the brand itself.

This ‘trend ‘towards better service levels and creating a passionate movement is in response to human behaviour. With the increasing amount of technology in the lives of our consumers we need more than ever to create that personality in our brand that makes us stand out from our competitors .

An excellent level of service was previously for the elite, the celebrity, the people with money, now this has very much shifted to the mainstream of our society.

As spending power increase and choices become greater, consumers have a ever higher expectation that every purchasing opportunity should deliver a degree of ‘delight’.

Just a Richard Branson has taken an existing product offer and repackaged it with that extra mile, easy- to- use services and friendly staff with great success, we too must have that unique narrative.

The brand experience and ‘creating a passionate movement’ is created only by having a ‘brand vision’.  Every resulting perception and insight will denigrate your brand.

To engage the consumer the start up brand must understand how its audience will be interacting with the whole brand environment and experience. Then the customer journey must be scripted to follow this path, the whole story; from the retail experience to the product itself, the services the price and the follow up customer care and interaction.

So, until your brand start up makes that connection between what is said and what is done, form the board level to the on the ground operations ,creating that passionate movement where all are involved and all opinions matter the consumer will continue to have a love/hate relationship with your brand that will not move forward and beyond in the future.

How To Deliver That Perfect Phone Experience….

“The purpose of coaching is to produce behavioural change and growth in the coachee for the economic benefit of the client.” – Harvard Business School

The future of phone coaching is considerably bigger than you imagine. Like everything in our lives, along with the incredible changes in technology distance learning opportunities are becoming increasingly vast! You may be surprised to realise that nearly all business coaching is in fact done over the phone.

Phone coaching is often more efficient than face-to-face support; your staff need not take any time out of the office or away from their own desk for that matter. They need not be stuck in traffic on the motorway, late for the telephone skills course that actually they were a little reluctant to get up early for and attend.

Phone coaching can be less expensive, as its reach to clients is as infinite as the internet itself; phone coaching has few barriers either by organisation or country. We are as at home coaching a client in New York City as we are speaking with employees in Australia.

Just as a sports coach trains an individual in physical activity, phone coaches play a significant role in the mental activity of your team; enter http://www.myphonecoach.co.uk

Whenever the phone rings in your organisation are your staff eager to diligently offer information about your company, service or product? To answer any questions with ease and provide the simple extra touches that show your customer that they care?

The way you answer your calls sets the stage for your customer’s experience with you. Often it can seem like a chore just being nice in your ever over scheduled day, but effective coaching can help you discover how easy it really is to apply effective skills and techniques.

It makes no difference who the phone caller is, in the first instance this communication tool is your showcase, it is essential to know how to perform efficiently, effectively, immediately. The minute the call is answered the curtain is up, the stage set and the act begins.

To reinforce your brand through this vital customer touch point and provide that all important repetition necessary to inspire repeat purchasing decisions or return customers visit our new service at http://www.myphonecoach.co.uk

My Son and the Second Life Customer Experience

My son is 17, and like every other boy of his age, when the holidays start, is in his room, door shut, online to his friends. He is a football’ fanatic’ and so plays online matches with his friends from school without leaving his room. Don’t get me wrong, he does come out for meals, joins in family discussions and even comes shopping or out for the day with us all. He is not a ‘nerd’ nor does he have introverted tendencies. He is as ‘normal’ as we all are? He is and has been incredibly inquisitive and creative in everything he touches or does, and is always on the lookout for something new and innovative to discover or follow.

Today, he has discovered ‘Second Life!’

For those of you uncultured in all things computerised, Second life was founded in 1999 by Linden Lab. A 3D virtual world created for people like you, which is bursting with entertainment, experiences, and opportunity.

Second Life offers a uniquely immersive experience where you can create, buy, and sell anything you can imagine; socialize with people across the world; and enjoy live events and gaming activities. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programmes (for the uneducated on such matters amongst us, client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server) enable Second Life users, called residents to interact with each other through avatars. In computing an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user’s alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds. Residents can explore the world (known as the grid), meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another. Second life is intended for people aged 16 and over. Since its opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of people from around the globe. This new virtual world could become the first point of contact between companies and customers and could transform the whole customer experience.

This set me thinking about the Customer Experience in this Second Life…

The days of us adults or indeed our children taking an afternoon stroll to the local shop for some groceries or sweets have more or less gone. We tend to jump into our cars, go to the nearest shopping outlet or arcade or just go online as my children do and browse around the “virtual” shopping experience.

Smaller enterprises simply cannot compete with the buying power and hours of operation of the higher-tech institutions. And yet, as we do this we lose touch with the customer experience because of the very impersonal nature of these online transactions.

Often I will ‘only’ go into town, if I either need some exercise, or to find a store where there is that great customer experience, or the need out ways that experience. The reason I chose to go there is because it is likely I will encounter an experience of trust, and concern for me the customer which I cannot feel or touch on line.

Customer relationships in a virtual world can be very fastidious. Like the design of our own Company website, it is important that we present it with a favourable face to the customer. The design of the business on the website is of upmost importance. In a world where anything-goes design-wise, it is vital that we portray to our customer service representatives how we want to appear. The business must present something fantastic, that it could not present in the real world, if it wants to draw customer loyalty again and again.

Second Life provides this striking ambience for simulating real world interactions online. It has the same advantages as a webinar, and that innate ability to amass many people from around the world into a real-time collaboration.

Second Life, being a virtual reality is not so much about providing clients with information they can read but more about a customer experience around a community they can visit.

A good example of this is Nassau and the Star Trek Fan Club both have “sandboxes” in virtual worlds in space where visitors can design ships and lunar bases It focuses on characters and lets you land on planets, how cool is that!

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And my conclusion about these sites compared to the ‘real’ world; Many virtual businesses have forgotten (or perhaps never learned in the first place) that the customer experience is a fundamental criteria of every good business. Customers are still people whether you are face-to-face with them in a ‘real life’ situation or moseying -the internet with them in a virtual one. Customers come to you because they have a need, and if all the technical ‘whatchamacallits’ aren’t focuses on the basic principles of the customer experience then you will lose customer loyalty. Used in the correct way, however, technology can open opportunities for that great customer experience that a real life business cannot. These businesses are always 24/7.

So when my son browsed through this second life at a breakneck speed (I hasten to add!) I had to ask myself the question. If second life isn’t mind boggling enough, could there be a third life which is where second life characters then have their own second life. What then to the customer experience.. The mind boggles..

And my son.. After being led to a beach of nude avatars, swiftly deleted his account and returned to the football!

You may also find this an interesting read, an article on Bloomberg Businessweek about the same subject. http://buswk.co/HiM0LB

Author Cheryl Gregory

Do You Need To Excavate The ‘Confirmation Bias’ Of Thought In Your Organisation in 2013?

Yesterday I read an article that instantly reminded me of my days as a student when I was involved at Christmas time with an archaeological dig near my home town, and this got me thinking.

Over one hundred years ago the world was stunned by the discovery of ‘Piltdown Man,’ later revealed as the most famous hoax in British archaeology.

The find was a prehistoric skull believed to be the earliest evidence yet known of human life. At the time this human skull originally found in Sussex was regarded as presenting a hitherto unknown species of ‘homo’.

Until the 1950’s when it was discovered to be the biggest archaeological hoax in history, all previous scientific research appears to have aimed to confirm this belief rather than disprove it.

It was not until 1953 that this skull was produced and re-examined by scientists. The evidence of fake could be seen immediately. And so the years of belief was challenged.

The fact that it took more than four decades for the hoax to be exposed is a bit of an embarrassment for science, but understandable given the limited technology and techniques available at the time of Piltdown Man’s discovery. The case also serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of ‘confirmation bias’

Confirmation bias is a phenomenon wherein decision makers have been shown to actively seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms their hypothesis, and ignore or under weigh evidence that could dis-confirm their hypothesis. Many of these biases are often studied for how they affect business and economic decisions.

So, with this in mind what does confirmation bias mean to customer feedback?

We need to ensure that when seeking customer feedback and especially when it involves verbatim comments, that we seek an open and honest evaluation, and not seek to influence it towards our own views. Otherwise we risk undermining strategic and tactical initiatives.

Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. So often poor decisions in business can be due to these biases, and these have been found in military, political, and organizational contexts everywhere.

So the next time you set about gathering customer feedback either on line through surveys, via social media, or face to face forums, double check that you are not being influenced by ‘confirmation bias.’

Do You Need To Excavate The ‘Confirmation Bias’ Of Thought In Your Organisation in 2013?

For more reading;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2012/dec/19/piltdown-man-hoax-archaeology-1912

Games May Help Train Analysts to Overcome Bias

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121113122038.htm

For Videos;

Why Are So Many Organisations Procrastinating With Their Customer Experience Training?

“ You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology – not the other way around.” Quote from Steve Jobs in May 1997 at a Disney World Wide Development Conference

Procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with tasks of lower priority, or doing something from which one derives enjoyment, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time.

I guess in some organisations people procrastinate because they are perfectionists and fear failure. If a project they are working on never gets off the ground, then the chance of error or rejection is eliminated but so is the opportunity for success.

We have come across so many procrastinators over the years in our business that we could write a book on the subject, and it is possibly one of the most frustrating and irritating aspects of our work

The scenario goes a bit like this… management have a meeting and discuss that Customer Experience training should be implemented as a matter of up most importance and urgency. The company has been under performing, sales are down, targets are not being met, and everybody else is undergoing some kind of ‘experience’ training for their management and staff. It seems flavour of the month!

So… with the above in mind, emails are fired off, ideas are bounced around, and contractors called in for first meetings. With no particular goal; the organisation just knows or feels that it is in need of training.

How many times have we seen companies all fired up to start on that journey of the having the greatest of all in Customer experience the meetings go ahead the agencies are called in their droves to meetings where every morsel is chewed over. The team is bombarded with ideas and things to change the organisation.

Several weeks or months down the line, everything is in place and then the bomb shell…. you haven’t actually got a budget put aside, or another department is responsible for the budget and loosely it has been agreed that a budget is available! ‘What not actually committed!!’ Then why are you looking for training, if you clearly have no budget, no idea of budget or more importantly not been given the go ahead from Senior Management. Why are you wasting your time!

You might be surprised to know we have seen some of the most influential organisations in the UK have no idea of their budget at this stage way down the line on their journey. They might as well have run the training in house on their months before and not wasted everyone’s time!

How can your organisation become the best in customer experience if you cannot even focus on getting organised on being the best yourself? Great customer experience can only work if the momentum for it cascades from the top down. You must make careful detailed preparation in advance, including having the budget clearly in mind that you can use quickly and not procrastinate!

Where do you go wrong, why do you run before you can walk?

Did you do your homework? Did you research exactly what you needed and how you were going to implement the changes? Did you have a set goal in mind? Everyone in the team must know the goal inside and out, have you communicated it properly to everyone involved? Are you living and breathing the dream? Without this firm in place you will have no absolutely no chance of being better than your competition!

But do you know the most important and crucial act of all is ‘do it now! Act now! Do not delay!

Action expresses priorities. – Mahatma Gandhi

The Importance of Empathy In The Customer Experience

We often get people say to us how much they love our company name The Customer’s Shoes. And we’re grateful that we made a choice that has such wide appeal even if we do get the occasional passer by stop us in our branded car asking us if we sell shoes!

At the heart of our name is the principle of ‘empathy’ an important element of the customer experience. Our philosophy to customer experience requires clients to stand in the customer’s shoes and to hear what they hear. See what they see. Feel what they feel. And in this way you’ll find inevitably that you find new, more relevant ways to treat your customers  Because by doing so you begin to demonstrate your empathy with the customer or in the case of healthcare the patient.

Empathy is perhaps the most important skill to develop in the customer experience arena, a skill that is often overlooked.

Please watch this video clip presented to Cleveland Clinic staff by CEO Toby Cosgrove, MD during his 2012 State of the Clinic address on Feb. 27, 2013. Simply titled “Empathy.”

Definition of Empathy

Empathy has many different definitions and the subject itself is widely studied. Definitions encompass a broad range, from caring for other people and having a personal desire to help them. For example when a customer service representative that really cares for their customer’s predicament wants to find a solution for them.

It can also include experiencing emotions that match another person’s emotions such as feeling annoyed and upset when a co-worker tells you of how they have been treated by their boss.

Another example of empathy is having a clear knowledge of what the other person is thinking or feeling. At it’s extremes it can become the blurring between one’s self and an other.

But the ability to imagine oneself as another person is actually a very sophisticated imaginative process that doesn’t come easily. So telling somebody on a training course that they simply need to show empathy to their customers  undervalues the skill involved and the requirements involved to develop empathy as a core skill. It is believed however that the basic capacity to recognise emotions is probably an innate one and a skill that some of us possess in greater quantities than others. It may even be achieved unconsciously.

The good news is that empathy can be trained and achieved with various degrees of intensity or accuracy. Contact The Customer’s Shoes if you need training on developing empathy in your teams or yourself.

For other videos on topics we’ve found relevant to the customer experience view our YouTube channel.