The webinar software wasn't working.

An important client was paying me to facilitate a virtual session for its employees. The client had juggled a lot of schedules to make sure everyone could attend. A lot was riding on this.

I could feel a rising sense of anxiety. There was less than 30 minutes before the webinar started.

To my surprise, a friendly employee quickly answered my technical support call. To my greater surprise, she expertly diagnosed and resolved the problem without first insisting on asking me 50 irrelevant questions.

Then, she did something shocking.

"I know your webinar is about to start," she said. "I'm going to stay on the line with you for a few minutes. I think we've fixed everything, but I'll be right here just in case something goes wrong."

Wow.

Empathy like this doesn't always come easily. Here's how to help your team develop empathy super powers.

What is empathy?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines empathy this way:

the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner

Yeah, it’s a mouthful. It means we understand how another person is feeling.

In customer service, we take this definition a bit further. Empathy means understanding the negative emotions your customer is experiencing and taking action to help them feel better.

The technical support rep sensed that I was anxious about the webinar. Fixing the issue gave me a strong sense of relief. The rep offered to stay on the phone to provide reassurance that everything was now working.

Customer service managers tell me empathy is the top skill they hire for.

Why is empathy important in customer service?

Customers have two types of basic needs: rational and emotional.

• Rational needs: what a customers needs us to do

• Emotional needs: how a customer wants to feel

When I frantically contacted technical support, my rational need was getting the webinar software to work properly. My emotional need was to get relief from the anxiety the issue was causing me.

I needed to be in a positive state of mind to facilitate a great session for my client.

Customer service employees are trained to detect rational needs, but it’s rare that employees are taught to listen for emotional needs.

That’s a mistake, because emotional needs are more important. This short video explains more.

How to develop customer empathy skills

Empathizing with someone else requires you to have had a similar or relatable experience so you can understand how they are feeling.

The secret to becoming great at empathy is to tap into your own experiences, or add new ones, that will help you better understand your customer's emotions. Once you do this, empathy becomes much easier.

Here are three techniques you can use.

Technique #1: Be your own customer

Spend some time being a customer of the company you work for so you understand exactly how it feels to be in your customers' shoes.

• Use your product or service

• Visit a physical location as a customer

• Contact your company’s customer service department

Employees at REI are very empathetic because they tend to be outdoor enthusiasts, just like their customers. They understand the anticipation and anxiety of preparing for a big camping trip or a mountain climbing expedition because they do it themselves.

Support agents at the customer service software company, Zendesk, use Zendesk to support their customers. This helps them understand exactly what their customers are experiencing.

My own Customer Service Tip of the Week email goes out to thousands of subscribers, including me. This lets me see each new email exactly how everyone else sees it.

Technique #2: Interview customers

You might work in an industry where it's not easy to become a customer. In this case, an alternative way to develop empathy is to interview customers.

For instance, when clients want to hire me as a keynote speaker for an event, I often ask them several additional questions:

• What is the overall theme of the event?

• What is the importance of this event to you?

• What would make this event a successful one?

I also conduct interviews with several people who will be in the audience, so I can learn more about their perspective on the topic I’ll be covering.

Legal practice management software maker, Clio, had its employees conduct in-depth interviews with at least one customer. This provided people in a wide variety of roles, from accounts payable to product development, with a new perspective on their customers.

Technique #3: Find relatable experiences

Another great technique is to search your memory for experiences that created feelings similar to what your customer is experiencing.

Here's how it works:

1. Pick a specific situation where a customer had strong emotions.

2. Identify what emotions the customer was feeling.

3. Try to imagine why the customer felt that way.

4. Imagine a situation when you had the same feelings.

5. Think about what you could do to make the customer feel better.

I once witnessed an airline gate agent masterfully use this technique to calm down an irate passenger who had missed her flight. It's a great story.

Empathy Resources

You'll find a lot of a great examples of customer-focused companies that help employees empathize in The Service Culture Handbook.

Beware of empathizing too often with too many customers. Empathy fatigue is real, and it causes us to lose our ability to care about others. Here are some ideas to avoid it.

You can also see empathy in action and get more ideas from this short video.