It is not easy to become a successful customer service professional. If you want to advocate for and help people, you will need a lot of patience, significant knowledge about the product, and of course, empathy. Employees working in customer service often get caught up in the daily grind and forget the main purpose of their job: to help! There is nothing more important for a customer service agent than to resolve customer issues and restore their relationship with the company. One powerful tool is using empathy to join with customers and look at their issues together, rather than being perceived as the opposition. While you’re at it, make them feel valued.
Why Are Empathy Statements Important?
Whether you handle sales, service, technical support, or any other contact center transactions, empathy statements have a direct impact on the success of your service. Some of the benefits of using such statements are as follows:
1. Improves Customer Service
Empathy statements let customers know how much an agent understands, cares for, and relates to their problems. They make it clear to the customers that you are committed to finding quality solutions to their issues. Empathy statements also help in alleviating stress, forging a human connection, and building brand loyalty. When agents make customers feel how sincerely they are trying to help them, they will become more receptive to their recommendations, and less critical of any shortfalls. If your company’s service interactions are not achieving this level of connection with your customers, consider outsourcing your contact center service to Business Process Outsourcers (BPOs) who specialize in customer relationships and have experienced staff ready to manage and nurture your clients for high-quality interactions on every contact.
2. Enhance Efficiency
Being empathetic allows customer service agents to cut through the noise, understand what the customer wants, and then execute efforts accordingly to achieve the desired outcome. This helps the workforce to offer solutions instantaneously. They will even be able to manage more support requests in less time, boosting productivity. Since there will be minimal wait times and quick support, it will help businesses to achieve greater success. You can enhance the efficiency of your staff even more by deploying a fully operational omnichannel contact center solution. This will allow your agents to interact with customers through the customers’ contact preferences and convenience.
3. Boost Sales
Numerous studies have shown that customers buy the person and not the product. Every time a customer makes contact it is important for you to resell them to the company. One study showed that 52% of consumers stopped buying from a company due to their communication with the company. Of those, 17% specified ‘insensitivity’ in engagement as the primary reason. Therefore, a strong focus on nurturing your customer base with empathy, and not just focusing on issue resolution is an important component of a solid customer service strategy. More importantly, is the opportunity such interactions play in building more customer loyalty to your business.
When to Use Empathetic Statements Effectively
Customer service conversations are divided into multiple stages such as greeting the customer, listening to the issue, ending the call, etc. To deliver exceptional CX, it is imperative to include empathic statements at every stage and in any customer-facing business, whether in-house or through outsourcing solutions. Here are some of the ways you can use empathetic statements in various scenarios:
1. Greeting and Authenticating Customer
It is crucial for service agents to greet customers with empathy. After all, this will allow them to make a pleasant impression. When your staff greets customers properly, it will help them to initiate the conversation in the right way. While greeting, it is important to use the name of your customers to make it more personalized. Your customers will feel that your business cares about them. Here are some of the empathy phrases your team can use to greet a customer:
- Thank you for waiting, how can I help you?
- I know it’s hard to keep track of all account information these days, so let’s try another route…
In an Omnichannel solution where prior interaction information is available to the agent:
- Hi (Customer Name), good to see you back! Are you having any problems with your purchase?
- Good morning/afternoon (Customer Name)! Thank you for reaching out. I will do everything to assist you with the matter.
2. Addressing the Issue
After the initial greetings, the agent asks probing and clarifying questions to identify the customer’s issues. The next statement should make it clear that the agent understands the situation. When the staff addresses customer issues and shares examples, it will let them know that they are not alone in this. Here are a few examples of how to do just that:
- I have experienced this issue, or I encountered this with another customer recently as well.
- I get your situation and understand that this is something important to you, or understand we need to get this addressed.
- I am working on your issue and will give you an update about it shortly. Thank you for being so patient.
3. Handling a Furious Customer
Despite your best efforts, you won’t be able to satisfy every single customer at all times. There will always be some disappointed buyers who may lash out because of certain issues. So, to avoid things getting worse, a customer service representative should use empathetic statements combined with a path forward to help alleviate the customers’ frustration, for example:
- This should not be the case, let’s get this resolved for you right away.
- I understand your frustration, Let’s get this figured out.
- I apologize for the inconvenience and am going to get this straightened out for you.
4. Closing the Conversation
Closing the conversation is one of the most important components of a service call. It is necessary for your customer representatives to close a conversation only if they have successfully resolved a customer’s problem. The agent must apologize to the customer for any inconvenience. If the problem was resolved, they should close by appreciating them for preferring your brand over your competitors. Here are some positive closing phrases:
- I would like to apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your time and patience. Have we resolved the issue to your satisfaction?
- You have been a great customer. Thank you for shopping with us.
- I am happy I was able to help you resolve the issue. Have a wonderful day!
Conclusion
Introducing empathy in the anxiety-prone environment of customer service can work wonders for your business.
According to a recent study, 92% of Americans want to see companies practice empathy.
Being empathetic enables agents to make the customers feel heard and understood, foster lasting relationships, and ultimately, boost sales. It’s true that empathy doesn’t always come naturally, therefore it is necessary to prioritize it within your customer service strategy including the training of your agents.