It’s the Empathy, Stupid
James Carville’s famous phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” was the cornerstone of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign. As we saw again this week, the phrase remains highly relevant in politics. When it comes to brand leadership and creating positive brand experiences, however, “economy” can easily be replaced with “empathy” — and what emerges is a powerful, if still underestimated, formula for success.
Customer Expectations vs. Company Performance
For over a decade, we’ve used Heads Brand Profiling™ to track the most relevant brand values for companies. Across more than 150,000 data points, one insight has stood out time and again: management and employees invest heavily in strengthening their corporate brand through core performance. But customers, for the most part, are already fairly satisfied with the performance itself — what they’re missing is something entirely different. Consider a few direct quotes from countless brand profiling interviews: “If they listened to us more carefully, they’d be even more successful.” “They ask for my opinion, but nothing ever comes of it.” “They’re friendly, but unfortunately not flexible.” Adopting the customer’s perspective and developing a deep understanding of their real concerns seems to be one of the greatest challenges for many organizations. Instead, companies tend to focus on technical and methodological skills — rather than personal ones, such as learning empathy.
What Companies Risk Without Empathy
Why does this matter? A 1997 study by the American Society of Quality Control found the following reasons why companies lose customers:
1% of customers die
3% move away
5% are influenced by friends
9% are won over by competitors
14% are dissatisfied with the product
68% feel neglected or treated with indifference
The study may not be recent, but it’s doubtful that digitization and social media have changed these dynamics much. Even along the digital customer journey, needs are often overlooked and individuality ignored. As hotelier and author Carsten K. Rath aptly put it: “Between customer loyalty and dissatisfaction lies only the behavior of employees.”