Listening: Three Shifts You Can Make to Connect and Build Empathy with your Customer

@mfbrodie Mary Brodie
Listening:Three ShiftsYou Can Make
to Connect and Build Empathy
with your Customer
Mary Brodie, Gearmark
Sept 21, 2018
Big Desgin Dallas

Listen to words.
Listen to actions.
Listen to behaviors.

What we will accomplish today
I’ll share “how to” tips:
• Become a better listener
• Expand your definition of
listening
• Build empathy through
conversations
How will this help you?
• Design better conversations and
customers experiences
• Improve your company’s customer
relationships
• Help you make your company
more money

Lynn Borton

JulianTreasure

How we learn to communicate today
WritingReading
Speaking
Listening
Julian Treasure, presentation at a virtual Rosenfeld Conference.

Without curiosity or enjoyment, we’re only hearing to obey.

7Types of Listening
Type of listening Description
Listening to respond Determine your response while the speaker is speaking
Listening to understand Focus on understanding what the speaker is trying to communicate
Active
Focus on what the speaker is saying
Provide verbal and other physical cues to indicate listening is happening
(and hopefully improve your own listening)
Appreciative
Focus on the speaker to enjoy the story, music, or information being
communicated
Critical Analyze what the speaker is saying and determine his agenda
Relationship
(Therapeutic or empathetic listening;
listening to understand)
Provide emotional support, build trust for open communication
Discriminative Look past the words you hear to detect the underlying message

If we need to take formal grammar classes to
speak and write English well….
…shouldn’t that logic follow for listening?

Ways to be a better listener…
RASA
Sanskrit: juice or essence
Receive
Appreciate
Summary
Ask
HARAH
Humility
Awareness
Respect
Attention
Humor
The 4Cs
Commitment
Consciousness
Compassion
Curiosity

My 3 Lessons from JulianTreasure
Lesson #1
Don’t assume that
we all listen the
same way and have
the same listening
experience.
Lesson #2
You can’t control
the information you
get from someone
else.
Lesson #3
Communication is
personal and messy
and involves
interaction with
others.

SherryTurkle

Actions orWords or Both?
Which is more meaningful to the person and to you?

A conversation is really an interaction between
two people or entities that builds a relationship.

Our customer’s communication comes through
metrics and results.
That’s why we should approach them with curiosity –
it’s a way for us to listen.

Do your employees love your customers?

4Type of Emotional Expressions
Pity/Contempt Sympathy Empathy Compassion
So sad. I’m sorry you are sad
and going through a
difficult time.
I can feel your sadness
and understand why
you feel that way.
I can feel your
sadness, understand
it, and want to help
you fix it.

From pity to compassion
Qualities Pity Sympathy Empathy Compassion
Thoughts while feeling
the emotion
“That’s sad.” “I’m sorry you are sad and
going through a difficult
time.”
“I can feel your sadness and
understand why you feel
that way.”
“I can feel your sadness,
understand it, and want to
help you fix it.”
How sadness is
experienced
Condescension and
contempt
Shifts to reflecting on life Simply understood Understood and a
motivation to find a
solution emerges
Connection between
employee and customer
None. Don’t see anything
shared in common.
Little shared in common.
Limited connection.
Shared experiences. Shared experiences. Know a
solution is possible.
How employees view
customers
Objectify them There is a detached
perspective
There is a connection Humanize others
How the employees feel
about the customers
Feel subtle contempt for
them
Respect them Respect them Love them
The employees believe
that the customers got
into this situation…
It was self-inflicted
(consciously or sub-
consciously)
A situation happened and
the result was this current
experience.
Decisions were made –
they are where they are
now.
It doesn’t really matter
how; we need to fix it.
Do employees believe
that customers can solve
their problems?
Nope. Not really. Sure, they will. They will
find a way.
They will find a way to solve
their problem.
Yes – let’s collaborate to
solve the problem.

Empathy:
“the act of coming to experience the world as you
think someone else does”

3Types of Empathy
Emotional empathy
Literally feeling another's
emotions.
Compassionate empathy
Recognize another's
emotional state, feel in tune
with it, and if it is a distressful
emotion, feel and show
appropriate concern.
Cognitive empathy
See things from another's
point of view by putting
yourself in someone else's
shoes.

“The more empathetic managers were, the more they used their
personal preferences to predict what customers would want.
Another key finding that should get people’s attention is that the
more empathetic the managers were, the more they ignored the
market research on customers that we provided them.”
Johannes Hattula and his coresearchers Walter Herzog, Darren Dahl, and
Sven Reinecke Imperial College’s
“PuttingYourself in the Customer’s Shoes Doesn’t Work:An Interview with Johannes Hattul,a” HBR
https://hbr.org/2015/03/putting-yourself-in-the-customers-shoes-doesnt-work

Paul Bloom

Empathy helps us understand what someone is
feeling and thinking and gain insight into his or her
motivations.
Compassion gives us the distance to help them solve
their problem.

Lynn E. O’Connor & JackW. Berry:
“We can’t feel compassion without first feeling emotional
empathy. Indeed compassion is the extension of emotional
empathy by means of cognitive processes.”
Against Empathy, Paul Bloom

My definition of empathy:
an attempt at understanding someone else’s
emotional situation by relating through a similar
physical and emotional event that occurred in their
own life

Process to design with empathy
Step 1: Learning
Research and
understand your
audience.
Step 2: Discovery
Identify the emotional
issue.
Step 3: Insights
Find a connection to
what your customers
are experiencing.
Step 4: Solution
Determine actionable
ways to connect to
customers to solve
their problem.

Example: Health Insurance
Step 1: Learning
Most consumers are
petrified of health
insurance.
Step 2: Discovery
Extreme fear and anger
around the insurance
business creates
confusion.
Step 3: Insights
Participating in a system
without knowing the
rules could endanger
their well-being.
Step 4: Solution
Help customers
understand insurance as
a system – explain why
they need it and how it
works.

Ways insurance managers could help
customers overcome fear and anger
Education builds trust with customers, reduces anger and frustration,
and removes mystery, which causes the fear.
Explain how
insurance works and
healthcare legislation
in plain English.
Explain why people
need health
insurance to alleviate
fear.
Provide tips for what
they should be
looking for in a plan.

Example: Flash Storage for IT
Professionals

Who are IT professionals?
They don’t get the credit
they deserve.
They have high risk jobs. IT is overhead - costs
are always a factor in any
decision.
They are a logical group. They care about the
business impact of new
technologies and shy
away from “science fair
experiments.”
They consider
compatibility, ease of use,
installation, maintenance
– and of course time and
cost.

Example: Confusion about flash technology
and its business benefits
Step 1: Learning
IT professionals believed
a lot of myths about the
technology.
Step 2: Discovery
Embarrassment by not
understanding a
technology that they
knew they should know.
Step 3: Insights
Provide education that
wasn’t intimidating or call
them out for not
understanding.
Step 4: Solution
Video: a casual
conversation about what
Flash technology is, how
it works, and its business
benefits.

Example: Unclear what to look for when they
were going to buy a flash storage server
Step 1: Learning
Confusing market with
many solutions. Hard to
know who to trust.
Step 2: Discovery
Insecurity and fear
about choosing the
right solution. So many
options, so much risk.
Step 3: Insights
Looking for a leader to
provide guidance as to
what to look for in a
solution.
Step 4: Solution
Book: flash buyer’s
guide outlines factors
to consider when
buying flash storage.

Measure empathy and compassion?
Category Description
Engagement
• Demonstrate that you can hold a conversation with your customer and connect
to them in some way
• Build connections on social media: like, share, or comment
• Build relationships: click through a link to your site and keep interacting
through chat or phone
Loyalty
• Repeat buyers and visitors
• Track your customers end-to-end – who consistently read emails, click to
articles, use the product, provide great reviews and recommendations
Accountability
• Includes product reviews that validate messaging about the problem you solve
and how you solve it
Brand and Reputation
• Net promoter score
• Leverage accountability for reputation
• Traditional brand recall metrics

What did we discuss today?
#1
There are many types of
listening (actually, 7 types)
but to be a great listener,
you need to be:
• Curious
• Present
• Have no expectations
• Acknowledge the
relationships are built on
conversations
#2
Listening isn’t just hearing
words – it includes
observing actions
Actions speak louder
than words
#3
Empathy will help us
understand someone
else, but we need to
share a similar life
experience to become
compassionate

Don’t be like the managers from the study who think
they are empathetic because they think they know their
customers.
Connect to what your customers are feeling.
Relate emotionally through a similar physical and
emotional events that occurred in your life.

All relationships are based on listening.
Your best source of listening is to use the data
footprint your customers leave behind.
Start there, and the rest will follow.

How to contact me:
Gearmark’s site: www.gearmark.com
@mfbrodie
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfbrodie/
My site: www.mfbrodie.com
@gearmark_cx
https://www.linkedin.com/company/gearmark-cx/

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