How do high performing organizations do it? What strategies do these organizations employ to demonstrate empathy for both customers and associates?
Try these five strategies with clients, prospects, colleagues, centers of influence, and carriers:
Strategy 1 -- Lead by example. When you model and demonstrate empathy, it is quickly integrated into your business acumen, and your customers and associates will instantly respond.
Strategy 2 -- Create a culture where ethical behavior is both demonstrated and promoted. Ethical behavior begins by making yourself keenly aware of your connection with other people and the broader communities in which they live. It is important that you integrate their values into your own moral judgment. When you appreciate and respect their perspective and consider the moral actions that serve the broader community, you are demonstrating ethical leadership.
Strategy 3 -- Assess new employees’ capacity for empathy. Become skilled at how candidates for employment display empathy. Consider asking probing questions that relate to scenarios in which they demonstrated this quality. A new hire who is aligned with your organization’s empathic qualities will benefit the organization greatly. Leveraging empathy in the workplace is a simple, yet important way to establish an environment where employees care for each other.
Strategy 4 -- Develop a corporate memory plan. One of the largest sources of complaints is that customers have to repeat themselves over and over. Make certain that you and your colleagues pay special attention to conversations with your clients. Record the interactions and review them before any subsequent meetings. When your organization keeps records of client transactions, interactions, and preferences, your reputation for customer excellence will increase exponentially.
Strategy 5 -- Improve how your colleagues feel when serving clients. You and your associates must feel genuine concern your client’s pain. And make every attempt not to view a needy client as an annoying interruption in your workday. If you are not able to achieve this strategy, a valued client will sense that they are an annoyance and eventually stop doing business with you. Humans can quickly determine whom to trust, connect, and bond with. They will stop investing time and money if they view your organization as uncaring. Successful organizations understand that emotional and logical rationale goes into each and every client and prospective client decision.
By appreciating and cultivating empathy, you will become a better decision-maker, and your organization will achieve higher levels of performance and growth. Empathy will transform your business and serve as the force as it moves forward. Empathy will also give you a competitive edge over your competition – one that is difficult to replicate. In today’s challenging business environment, empathy must be seen as a business survival skill…one that is necessary to build a foundation of teamwork and leadership to accelerate organic growth.