Empathy in personal life and professional life
This article helps you to understand the importance of empathy in personal life and professional life.
As per google, empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”.
That precisely means empathy is the ability or a way of reciprocating to someone’s feelings be it good or bad. It makes people feel better, and comfortable when things are going in wrong direction for them.
You can also empathize with people who are exuberant and extremely happy. So, the opposite person will understand that you care about their feelings too.
Empathy in personal life
We offer empathy to so many people in so many ways in our daily life knowingly or unknowingly.
A few situations that we can relate to…
We feel sorry for a friend who could not make it to the final round of an interview.
We feel sad for a friend who is ruled out of exams for not paying the fee in given time frame.
We feel happy for our brother who has got an admission in a great university.
We feel happy for our children’s success at school or college level.
We not only just feel, but we empathize. We go to them and do share our feelings. Indeed, we tell them how actually we felt for those situations and shed some positive light because they are the closest people in our lives. We know this personal touch will instil some confidence in them to go fight and to flourish.
That is exactly what empathy is ‘the ability to understand and share the feelings of another’.
Here are some examples of empathy statements that we often use.
Hey, I am so sorry that you had a bad experience!
I’m disappointed as much as you. This should have not happened to you! hope things will get better!
I’m incredibly happy for you brother. You deserve it!
I m happy for your success!
So on and so forth. This is how we empathize in personal lives.
The statements we choose to use when reacting to somebody’s pleasant or unpleasant situations are called empathy statements.
Empathy in professional life
We empathize with people in personal life very naturally depending upon the situations. Whereas in professional life, empathy becomes necessary and sometimes plays an important role to satisfy the opposite person.
Example: Customer service
Customer service is a responsible profession where end to end coordination is required. People are disappointed and get easily pissed off if they are not satisfied with a product or service.
If you observe customer service agents, they are polite and composed while speaking to the customers and responding to their queries be it a phone call or face to face. They know that the customer/client is not happy for some reason.
Acknowledging the customer issue, empathizing makes a huge difference.
Imagine that you are a customer who purchased a brand-new phone from a mobile store 1 month ago, and went back to them in a while complaining about the damage. What kind of response do you expect from them?
Response 1 Is this phone still under warranty? If so, we will repair it. Please leave the phone here, come back after a week to collect it.
Response 2 I am so sorry that you had a bad experience with this device. I know how it feels but not to worry. I will help you in this regard. Let me check if this device is under warranty period. Sir, good news! it is still under warranty so your phone will be repaired at free of cost. I assure you about that.
Here, the situation is same, and the solution is same but the Response2 stands out because acknowledging the customer pain with empathy is what we see here. This makes you (customer) feel comfortable and assured.
Don’t you expect the same being a customer?
Every problem has a solution in this world but the approach matters. Even a disappointed customer or an irate customer can become loyal to you if the approach is correct.
That’s the power of empathy and so is the reason empathy plays an important role in corporate field especially in customer service-related jobs.
Just FYI, there are three types of services available.
- SAS (Software as a service)
- PAS (Platform as a service)
- IAS (Infrastructure as a service)
In today’s generation, most of the products and services have a support team to assist their customers 24/7, 365 days. (Television, computer, Mobile phones, vehicles, real-estate, food and beverage, healthcare, clothing, internet etc.)
Just imagine about the number of agents working round the clock, the amount of time, and efforts it takes to put a smile on the customer face. Despite all the energy spent, they feel happy when you are happy, and they struggle when you struggle. They empathize with you through out to make you comfortable and happy.
This personal touch is called empathy and it is powerful which cannot be replaced with any artificial intelligence or automation tools forever.
World is beautiful and still it is what it is because of its harmony. Positive people, positive thoughts, and positive emotions makes world a better place.
Empathy is a positive and pure emotion just like gratitude which can have an impact on other lives.
Hope you figured out the importance of empathy in personal life and professional life.
Bonus tip: If you are somebody who is willing to be a professional in customer centric domain now or in near future, remember these 3 golden rules.
Connect –>Engage –> Resolve
- Connect – Greeting/wishing the customer
- Engage – Acknowledge the issue, empathize with customer, and figure out the problem.
- Resolve – look at the possibilities and provide the best solution.
If you like this information helpful, please comment below and let us know your thoughts.