Empathy Expansion Kit: Customer Service with Heart

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
The Bliss business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:17)
Hello and welcome back to the show. In this short Empathy Expansion Kit episode, we are covering the topic of customer service with heart.
I'm Stephen Sakach here with Tullio Siragusa. Hey, Tullio.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:30)
Hey, let's see if I can do a heart. Terrible example of one, but I tried.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:38)
So let's start by defining what empathy means in the context of customer service. It isn't just addressing the customer's issue, it's about understanding their emotions and needs and expectations. It means putting yourself in their shoes like most empathy and seeing the world from their perspective, feeling that frustration when the product doesn't work as expected or recognizing their excitement when they find something they love, or understanding the urgency when they're in a time crunch. So in practice, empathetic customer service means listening actively, asking thoughtful questions, responding and acknowledging their emotions. It's not just about getting to the solution as quickly as possible.
It's about making sure the customer feels heard, validated, supported throughout that interaction. So empathy requires genuine curiosity and a willingness to connect on the human level. Not just fix the problem, but understand how the problem impacts their day-to-day life. So we've talked about this in the past, but there are three stages of the emotional customer journey. There's the emotional understanding, what we're just talking about, expressing that empathetic understanding of the customer's emotion. There's emotion management. So this is where you try to win the heart by providing the helpful recommendations and service it. Then you want to get to that emotional connection. That's really the end goal of that process, right Tullio?

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:19)
Absolutely. That's the most important distinction. You said something really key earlier, which is the phase of curiosity. Even in design thinking, there's five phases, but I've always adopted an earlier phase, which is curiosity. Phase one is always curiosity. Because without curiosity, you won't dig deeper to really understand. For example, empathetic customer service, it goes beyond just solving a problem. That's what I would call just taking care of the transaction. It's beyond transactional needs. It's about creating a positive emotional connection that can literally transform the entire customer experience.
When you address a customer needs with empathy, it's not just about, hey, I took care of the problem for you. You're making them feel valued, you're making them feel respected, cared for. You want them to be a customer. There's a connection that's made there. There's a relationship that's built. That emotional connection has the power to turn a one-time customer into a very loyal advocate, including turning that potential customer into an ambassador for the brand.
Think of it this way. A quick, efficient service that lacks empathy might get the job done, and it often does, but it leaves no emotional impact. It doesn't make you feel, wow, that was awesome. It's like, okay, they took care of my knee. Next. There's no memory associated with it other than check, problem solve. On the other hand, when the customer feels they've been treated with genuine care like their happiness matters to the company, it creates an experience, a memorable experience. It's not just, they took care of the problem, but they also took care of me. They took care of the problem, but they took care of me. There's the distinction between just taking care of a transaction and creating an experience. There's something the person feels that was done for them, not just for what they needed. In today's marketplace, where customers have so many options is key. The more a customer feels connected and cared for, the more likely they will return to your brand, and also share positive experiences about your brand, and even become advocates or ambassadors that will spread the word about your business, which is ultimately the greatest gift you could have, where someone feels so good about the experience that they talk about it, which is human nature. So empathy and customer service isn't just a nice to have. It's really a differentiator. It's a business differentiator, and it's what makes people feel like they're not just a ticket or in the system or transfer that needs to be solved, but they're valued as individuals that actually matter to the brand. So it's super powerful.

**Stephen Sakach** (5:26)
Yeah, I think we've talked about that a lot in terms of like marketing. It's when you get to that that sort of consumption stage, you want those emotions, you want that connection there, because that's really like you mentioned, if they become, you know, loyal ambassadors to your brand. This is the best marketing you can get. So this is an opportunity to take them kind of to that level with your brand. You've got an opportunity to connect with them. So you really, like you said, can't just have this short interaction problem solved, really see if you can take it to the next level.