I’m out of town. Using someone else’s car. I don’t know anyone here or where anything is. Isn’t that the way most horror movies start?
So I’m at this after hours marketing event in Fountain Hills, AZ - AMAZING GROUP! and when I leave to head for a restaurant, my friend’s car wouldn’t start. Crap.
I can’t call my friend – they aren’t available. So I pull out my AAA card and within 30 minutes Jason arrived.
“It’s the battery,” he says. “They don’t last long in Arizona – all this dry heat. Now you can let the car run and the charge build up for 20 or 30 minutes, but it looks like a dead battery to me. You’ll only have to call me to come back and jump start you again.”
It’s dark. The dealership – if I even knew where it was – is long since closed. The nearby auto mechanic…closed.
“You know,” Jason says. “I’m pretty sure the Checkers Auto Parts store will put in a new battery for you but they close pretty soon. Or you can call AAA and order a battery installed by us but there is a pretty hefty charge.”
I ask where I might find Checkers and he tells me. It isn’t far away – within ten minutes and so I opt for that option. I thank him very much and expect him to be on his way.
“I think I’m going to follow you there to make sure you find it and to make sure they can fix your car.”
You are kidding?
And that’s just what he did. I got to Checkers and they said “Oh -we used to put in batteries but we don’t do that any more.”
I told him that Jason had suggested I come and and in fact had followed me here. He said “where’s your car?”
We walk out to my running vehicle and Jason gets out of his truck and says “Are they going to take care of you?”
“They don’t do that any more,” I tell him.
Oh really – Jason looks at the employee who pops my hood and takes a look.
He comes back – faces Jason and says “I’ll do it.”
I have a happy story to share because of Jason. He had done his job when he jumped my car. There wasn’t anything that said he had to make sure the battery kept working, let alone follow me to a store and then gently convince the employee to help me. Jason puts himself in my shoes and showed empathy for my plight.
A stranger in a strange town with car trouble – that’s almost a guarantee for being taken advantage of and yet not with Jason and not with AAA. I’ve been a member for over 10 years and although I’ve used them many times and each time they have been wonderful = Jason’s assistance was certainly more than I expected and I am very grateful!
So what did it cost Jason or AAA to make me so happy – not to mention safe?
A total of 20 minutes and the gas to drive four miles from where I was parked to the Checkers store. And hats off to Ed at Checkers for doing something he wasn’t supposed to do any more. But he did the right thing by the customer. Again – showing empathy.
I attended a committee meeting last evening at one of the member’s homes. During the meeting the phone began to ring. She excused herself to take the call and was soon back at the table. Again the phone rang and the process was repeated.
This happened five times. The rest of us continued talking and ignored the ringing phone but finally she filled us in.
“I’m so sorry but my son just did a great thing at his baseball game and people are calling to tell me about it.”
That’s great! A homerun? A no-hitter? A triple play? We all speculated as to what this wonderful thing could be that would cause so many people to call.
“No. A little boy on the other team threw himself on the ground after being struck out. His team members left him there but my son went over, helped him up and told him it was okay and then walked him to the other team’s bench.”
We were all silent for a moment. Dante, the boy in question, is only eight years old. The other player had thrown a temper tantrum, as young kids are apt to do, however, most kids would point and laugh. Not this young boy. Dante felt the pain of his competitor and reached out a helping hand.
It was a little thing, really. Almost not worthy of a blog post. But the message in this story seems rather large to me.
Reaching out to help the competition is newsworthy
At the end of the day; helping others is more important than the end result
You are never too young to understand the value of putting yourself in the other person’s shoes
Lending a helping hand might not be the popular thing to do (witness his team mates who left him crying on the field) but it is always the right thing to do
Compassion and empathy live on in our next generation
Little eight year old Dante is my hero today. I wonder if put in a similar situation if I could have been brave enough to do the same thing. If I saw a competitor struggling or a customer having an ackward moment – would I step in or pretend I didn’t see? How about you? What can you learn from this 8 year old?
I love going to Connecting Touch for my monthly massage. I learn more about business and walk away relaxed and refreshed. Today was no exception. The owner, Jack Hayes, was telling me about a new program he’ll implement for the month of February.
“I wanted to find a way to give back to the community,” Jack told me. “Times are tough and I have been trying to think of a way to do something of value. And that’s when I thought of a food drive!”
Starting in February every customer who comes for a service with a canned good or non-perishable item will receive a coupon for a free hand paraffin treatment. (I’ve had them and they are a wonderful way to restore dry, cracked wintery hands). He’s contacted the Akron Food Bank and made arrangements with them for the donations.
It is a great idea. A simple, yet vital way to help his customers give back to the community.
People are looking for ways to help others. Is there some way your business can give back to the community? What ideas have you seen work? Have you heard about the new Hyunadi stimulus program? Buy a car this year and if you lose your job they’ll take the car back so you don’t have additional debt you can’t handle. Talk about being empathetic to a customer’s concerns!
Consider adding a program in which your customers are able (with your help) to give back to your community. You just might find that giving back will drive traffic to your door!
Here are instructions to give yourself a hot wax paraffin treatment at home, but if you are local to the Akron/Canton region, why not give Connecting Touch a call and let them pamper you. Just remember your canned goods!
When I first opened AllWrite Ink as a freelance writer I wanted my focus to be “writing with the reader in mind.”
If asked, most will say “oh, I do that” and yet few really take the time to put on someone else’s shoes and feel what it’s like to walk a mile in their shoes, to truly understand their:
Life experiences
Challenges
Health issues
Family joys and struggles
Fears
Educational background
Financial status
Goals, hopes and dreams
We think we talk and write with the other person in mind, and yet it is so hard to shake off our own preconceived notions and experience to really understand the other person.
True empathy is what I believe sets an exceptional customer experience apart from all others.
To create a make or break experience in the minds and hearts of our customers we have to walk a mile in their shoes.
When I was in Hawaii recently for the Sweet Adeline’s International competition I had the incredible joy of hearing the 2007 International quartet winners perform.
SALT is a wonderful quartet from Sweden. The artists: Anna Ohman, Annika Andersson, Anna-Stina Gerdin and Susanna Berndts have an amazing way of bringing their music to life for the audience. Watching the joy in their faces, the total blast they are having on stage performing, transfers to those in the audience and at the end you are on your feet screaming for more!
One of their songs is Walk a Mile in My Shoes. As soon as I heard it I knew that I wanted it to be the theme song for my company – to play while I work, to have available for you to hear and to play for my audiences as they enter one of my workshops.
The musicality is incredible, the fun they are having with the arrangement is evident and the words say it all: we need to take the time to walk a mile in each other’s shoes.
Thanks to Anna-Stina Gerdin for giving me permission on behalf of SALT to bring their wonderful sound to you. Enjoy WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES!
Are you shopping this holiday season? Are you noticing a smaller number of employees roaming the aisles and available if you have questions? You almost have to hunt one down, don’t you?
Shopping has become self-serve.
I was talking about it with my Dad the other day and we realized that we handle shopping challenges differently. If he is at the grocery store looking for toothpicks and can’t find them; he’ll hunt down an employee for help.
If I’m looking for toothpicks and can’t find them it becomes a challenge. I must get in the mind of the merchandiser. “if I were a toothpick, where would I be?” Well, when do I use toothpicks? When I’m baking.
So I head to the baking aisle. Hmmmm. No toothpicks. So where else do I use toothpicks? Appetizers. I use them to hold together my appetizers. So I look by condiments because when I serve spicy bite-sized pieces of sausage, I serve them with hot mustard. No toothpicks.
It takes awhile, but finally I think ALCOHOL. Toothpicks and olives in a martini. So I look near straws and find toothpicks. It is a game. If I’m not in a rush – I feel great satisfaction. If I’m in a hurry, I get pissed.
As the economy takes hold of the retail industry and businesses fight back by cutting down on the extra associates that used to walk the floor and be there for me before my frustration levels hits HIGH, our perception of the experience dwindles.
So retailors – ever smarter than shoppers – came up with a solution. A new script for the cash register employee.
“Did you find everything you were looking for?”
Have you been asked this? What do you usually say? “Yes, thank you.”
Why do you say that? Well, because as a customer – you’ve already spent the amount of time available in your busy schedule to shop and if you didn’t find what you were looking for; it will either wait until next time or it wasn’t all that important. Am I right?
So have you ever said “No.” Try it some time and watch the face of the employee.
They don’t quite know what to do. Most, when asking the question of their customers don’t even take their eye off their task. It is just a few extra words their boss told them to say. It is suppose to make people happy.
Now, if the associate stopped ringing my purchases, leaned toward me and asked “Did you find everything?” I might believe they really wanted to know the answer.
So the other day I said “No, thank you, I didn’t find it. I looked here and here and here and then tried to find someone to help me and I couldn’t.”
The associate said, “Oh, that’s too bad.”
Wow. That was helpful.
I know their boss MEANT WELL (and in some cases that might mean something) but as far as I’m concerned, asking if I have found everything as I’m on my way out the door is just a case of TOO LITTLE TOO LATE.
So what is a business to do? How can you convey concern, interest and empathy with half the staff?
The idea has merit – if you don’t have floor staff and the only customer interaction is at time of check out – then asking the question makes sense. However, it needs to be followed up with a response that conveys service.
If the associate asks the question before ringing up purchases then there will be time to look for the missing item and add it to the sale.
If a customer says no, the proper response should be “what couldn’t you find? Perhaps I can help.”
This leaves the door open for customer success!
If the product isn’t something you carry – having an associate confirm the fact that you didn’t find it because it wasn’t there to find rather than just being shelved in a place you wouldn’t think to look (like in the case of toothpicks) is somehow comforting.
Of course, going above the expected would be to suggest where the item might be found – i.e. a competitor. Remember the Santa in Miracle on 34th Street who sent customers from Macys to Gimbles for a better deal?
How do you feel when asked if you’ve found everything after you are done shopping? Do you believe the employee cares?
Every where you turn you’ll find a story of people making adjustments to their budget and lifestyle to stretch their paycheck even further. On the radio this morning the newcasters asked how you would ever find the words to tell your five year old that there isn’t food for lunch that day. These are real and scary problems that Americans face as the recession takes hold of every aspect of our lives.
How does an entrepreneur survive such times? We can’t afford to just sit by and hope that it won’t hit us or that this too shall pass. If we have a prayer of being around 12 months from now we have to become aggressive in how we protect our business from closure.
How?
Get inside your customer’s head and start to think like they are. Look at the products and services you offer and examine how you might help the customer downsize their need while still remaining a customer.
Payment Options
Do you offer payment options. Where once the customer thought nothing of paying in full, perhaps now is the time to offer three easy payments or payroll deduction or gradual credit card charges. Is there a way you can help customers pay for your product or service over time so they can continue to receive your benefits without the one time costly expense?
Break up the Bundles
In the past many companies offered bundling options; they packaged three or four products or services together for the ease of the customer’s shopping experience and the benefit of their cash register. However, perhaps now is the time to offer options. Offer the complete package but offer just the components they really need today at a separate cost.
Take Just What You Need
I’m reminded of the above clip from the classic It’s a Wonderrful Life. There is a run on the bank and people panic and want ALL of their money. Jimmy Stewart says “Just take what you NEED.” Miss Davis asks for $17.50 and gets her money and a kiss from Jimmy besides.
So what do your customers NEED? We all have products or services that are “nice to haves.” Now is the time to shine the spot light on what they NEED. Make it accessible. Remind your customers you have it and how it can help them.
Be Proactive
Be honest with your customers. Acknowledge that you understand times are tough. Sympathize. Empathize. Offer suggestions for how you might serve them the best. Now more than ever, your open, regular communication with customers is key. Be there for them today and they’ll be there (with their friends and family) later on.
Remember the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life? Those same people that try to make a run on the Savings and Loan are there for Jimmy when he really needs them and your customers will be also.
What other ways can you help customers downsize while still remaining customers?
Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.
Dean Koontz
Intellectually, we understand the value of empathy; the effort of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, to feel their pain.
But reality says “I just don’t have time.” “I don’t know how.”
If today’s consumer is looking to do business with a company that wants to build a relationship then our associates need to understand the value of empathy in undercovering customer needs.
But what if you don’t know how?
I’ve developed three easy ways to FAKE it. You’ve heard the saying “fake it ’til you make it.” Wake up on the wrong side of the bed in the morning, but if you put on a fake smile – pretty soon the responses will turn the fake smile into the real thing. Same with empathy. Here’s the three tips:
Learn to put yourself in the other person’s shoes by acknowledging the fact that they in fact have DIFFERENT shoes.
Listen with a desire to truly hear rather than quietly allowing the customer to talk while you formulate your response in your head.
Understand that their view of the situation might be entirely different than yours and since they are the ones making the purchase – whose view do you think is more important?
That’s it.So simple. The most important thing to remember is that the customer is coming at your conversation with other things on their mind that have nothing to do with you or your products. They have walked a different life than you and so their perceptions may be different.
You don’t have to understand what they are feeling, you just have to respect the fact that they may view the interaction differently from you.
What they feel has value and should be treated as such.
What do you think when you hear the word “empathy?”
Webster’s defines it as “the capacity for participation in another’s feelings or ideas.”
The Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodales lists similar words to “empathize” as:
respond
react
understand
be in tune
be hip to
be into
be turned on to
imagine
project
vicariously
put oneself into another’s place or shoes
Sounds like “girl” stuff, doesn’t it? It’s all that touchie-feelie stuff that we are too busy to bother with. We have things to do, people to see, money to make.
Yet, I would argue that we can show empathy in a non-gushy manner that will make all the difference to our customer or our employee or our spouse. In fact, we can show empathy in a single sentence.
Joe Rawlinson of Return Customers wrote a blog post recently entitled Show Empathy to Customers in which he tells of a shopping experience at Costco:
On a recent trip to Costco, there was a big thunderstorm brewing nearby. I knew that by the time I got out of the store, it could very well be a torrential downpour typical of a summer thunderstorm in Texas.
I didn’t want to get wet and I surely didn’t want my purchases to get soaked either.
I rushed through the store and picked up the items on my list. As I waited to exit, the guy that checks receipts said, “We’ll get you on your way before the rain hits.”
That little interaction literally calmed me down.
One sentence: “We’ll get you on your way before the rain hits.”
The cashier showed empathy by simply being aware of their surroundings and how the customer might be feeling by putting themselves in their shoes for a moment.
Sometimes we have to lift our head from the details of our daily life – take a quick look around – and put ourselves in the shoes of others. Just that one simple act can make the difference between a non-event and a Make or Break Moment that has led to the development of customer loyalty for Joe and Costco.
Have you ever noticed that we seem to put up road blocks for making change happen in our lives? As youngsters we wait until we are a teen or when we can drive or vote or get a new job or finish college or lose weight or earn more money or get married or get divorced or when the kids leave home or finish college or the economy gets better. Hmmm.
It’s always something. We are waiting for something to change BEFORE we are willing to make a change.
Why is that?
With Make or Break Moments there isn’t a reason to wait for anything because facing each moment with each customer as if they were the most important person in your day, doesn’t require a college degree or new marketing material or even money.
So what are we waiting for?
I ran across a post that Scott Ginsberg wrote a few years ago called Wait for Nothing. In it he talks about not waiting to make a name for yourself, but the same idea applies to starting a customer service attitude within our lives. He says:
… you don’t need to wait for anything or anybody to make a name for yourself.
You don’t need to wait for permission.
You don’t need to wait for the right time.
You don’t need to wait until you get the money.
You don’t need to wait for someone else to lead the way.
You don’t need to wait until you’ve had 20 years of experience.
You don’t need to wait for the mainstream to validate your voice.
I wrote my first book when I was 22.
I gave my first paid speech when I was 23.
Apparently, that’s not the way you’re “supposed” to do it.
See, most authors and speakers spend half their lives working for some big company or organization, then decide to write books or give speeches.
Not the other way around.
But the age of 22, my thought was, “Dude, I’m not waiting 15 years. Screw that! I’m ready now. Let’s go…”
So I did. And looking back, I realize it was the smartest move I ever made.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Scott, he is the Name Tag Guy – the one who wears a name tag 24/7 and has for about five years because he believes putting our name out there makes us more approachable.
So what are you waiting for? Creating an environment of make or break moments that are MAXIMIZED doesn’t take any money – it just takes a willingness to want to make a difference in the lives of those we encounter.
Making the most of those make or break moments means listening with our whole being, being empathetic – putting ourselves in their shoes and understanding that perception is the real truth.
I would encourage you to be more aware during your next conversation today. Whether that conversation is with a significant other, an employee, a peer, your boss or most importantly a potential customer and decide to make is a memorable moment.
Be the First to Comment 
I’m out of town. Using someone else’s car. I don’t know anyone here or where anything is. Isn’t that the way most horror movies start?
I attended a committee meeting last evening at one of the member’s homes. During the meeting the phone began to ring. She excused herself to take the call and was soon back at the table. Again the phone rang and the process was repeated.
