What Is Customer Empathy? [Definition and Overview]

What is Customer Empathy? 

Customer empathy refers to the ability of viewing and understanding the world from the perspective of the customers. Understanding what their problems are, what they are going through, and what motivates them facilitates customer empathy. 

Customer empathy is the key component in the development process of any product or service because it adds value and gives the customer a pleasant experience. 

Understanding the needs of the customer and the impact of some of their problems is a key benefit of customer empathy. Thus, it can help to deliver a quality product or service, which can hook the buyer because it renders genuine value. 

How to foster Customer Empathy?

To empathize with the customers is to be able to view the customers as humans. Their overall experience is enhanced when they feel heard and their feelings are acknowledged. 

This means, one needs to understand who they are, where they come from, what they feel, what their needs are, what kinds of problems they come across, and how they face them. It opens a plethora of possibilities to understand customer motivations. 

There are plenty of ways to empathize with your customers. However, following are the best three ways to foster Customer empathy.

Customer Empathy Map

The customer empathy map is an excellent way to organize thoughts and ideas about understanding the customers better. It’s a simple exercise that requires you to draw six quadrants. Each quadrant denotes one of the following questions. 

• What are the thoughts and feelings of the user? 
• What do the users do and speak?
• What do the users hear?
• What do the users see?
• What pain do the users face?
• What do the users potentially gain from?

Next, you can start filling the blanks with the context of the users and target area that you are targeting for your product. 

For instance, if you are developing a mental health therapy website that helps visitors connect with therapists, you would consider their therapy experience.

Remember to not rush through because the more time you devote to understanding the user’s point of view, the more comprehensive your insights will be. A large amount of time should be spent thinking and feeling along with an internal dialogue with your targeted audience. 

User Persona

A User Persona depicts a rough image of the target audience for your product or service. It consists of age, gender, income, lifestyle, location, etc. However, these details do not foster empathy.  

To make the user persona meaningful, you should also consider the person as a unique individual rather than a part of the group. Consider factors such as their likes and dislikes, hobbies, motivations, work, etc. 

Being able to identify their problems and what they struggle with on a day-to-day basis is one step forward to putting yourself in their shoes. Such a thought process also makes room for product ideas and how your business can benefit your customers. 

User Research

A more obvious way to connect and empathize with your customers is by interacting with them directly. This can be done through personal interviews, surveys or questionnaires, group interviews, etc. 

However, when it comes to deeper understanding, qualitative methods such as open-ended questioning should be chosen over quantitative methods. 

To gain more insights, Customer Advisory Boards can prove helpful. Nevertheless, personal interview sessions prove the most efficient to convey empathy and communicate directly with the customer.