There are four attributes of empathy, and I teach each of these characteristics in my Empathy eLearning course. One of the characteristics is communicate your understanding.
When your customer is upset, or frustrated, you could communicate your understanding this way:
You need to share any next steps with your customer; and then, you need to end with a fond farewell. In this article, you’ll learn how to assertively bring calls to closure, and end with a fond farewell.
Sharing next steps lets the customer know the call is almost over, and, this helps you to close the call quickly.
If you have next steps, just, share them. “Alright, Deon. I have processed your return. We’ll go ahead and ship the blue Nike Elite socks, and you should have those within 4-7 business days. You can check the status of your return by logging into our website.”
After you’ve shared any next steps, you move right into the final closure. End with the same energy and friendliness you had when you started the call. Nice farewells include:
I was trying to check in for my American Airlines flight on my phone. I was able to get one boarding pass, but not the other. After several failed attempts, I called American and explained […]
A few weeks ago I was in an Italian restaurant in Lower Manhattan with colleagues. When it was my time to order, I said, “I’ll have the Gnocchi.” Only, I mispronounced it. The server said […]
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I was 17, and my mom and I were ready to check out at JCPenney. We couldn’t find a person anywhere in the juniors department. We walked through departments and finally found someone in the boy’s department.
That someone was a middle-aged man in a suit. With the boldness of a brash teenager, I said, “What do you have to do to get service around here? We’ve been trying to spend our money, but no one’s around to take it.”
My mother gasped. The man said he’d get someone to help us and then he dialed a number on a black phone at the desk in the boy’s department. While we waited for that person to show up, I told him how long we’d waited and said,
“This isn’t acceptable. Your people should be here, ready to serve.”
“Do you think you could do better?” he asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“Then, you’re hired.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re hired. I’m Mr. ____(I don’t remember his last name now). I’m the store manager. You’re hired. I’ll get someone from Human Resources to process the paperwork. When can you start?”
When I hear an excellent, and genuine, expression of empathy from a company, I make a note of it. I’ll tell Siri to capture what I heard, or I’ll just type it out. I catalog ridiculously good empathy statements so that I can share them when I’m helping my clients with compassion.
In customer service workshops, like the one I delivered Friday in Columbus, I challenge my clients to use the empathy expressions I’ve heard (and felt) to inspire them to come up with their own empathic responses. Let’s make believe you’re with me now, in a training session. I share with you 20 of the best empathic expressions I’ve heard. Here they are:
I’m giving you the actual exercise I gave to the employees in the customer service training I delivered this morning, along with the discussion questions I used. If you’d like an excellent training activity that helps employees convey empathy, print off this exercise and facilitate a short discussion with your team.
True nobility isn’t about being better than someone else. It’s about being better than you used to be. Wayne Dyer said that. Always speak in complete sentences. Don’t say, “Zip code?” Say, “May I […]
My course, “Delivering Bad News to a Customer” for Lynda.com and LinkedIn Learning is now live! If you struggle with how to deliver bad news to customers, you’ll want to take this class. Here’s a description […]
De-escalation Training for Customer Service & Soft Skills Training 