Empathy key to service excellence

Empathy is the ability to share someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation, according to the Cambridge Dictionary. 
In the world of business, this trait can lead to great customer service experiences, better workplace relationships and better performance. 
But when organisations get it wrong, it often leads to a negative or downright service disaster. 
Several recent customer service fiascos on various airlines are proof of that when the plight of customers is ignored and their dignity trampled upon. Granted that people working in the airline industry are under intense pressure daily. According to CareerCast.com, “flight attendant” ranked as the 12th worst job in the United States in 2015, while Forbes ranked “air pilot” as the third most stressful job this year. 
But that’s no excuse. This article aims to highlight that with empathy come great customer service experiences.
Let me recount a real-life experience that I feel very proud to share, since it is a story about a Thai organisation. Some years back, a friend was attending a party at a five-star hotel on the bank of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. To her horror, a hotel attendant accidentally spilled a glass of red wine on her dress. 
To make matters worse, the party had just begun. 
No selfies or group photos taken yet. But what followed was truly amazing. 
The attendant took her and her group of friends to a room, offered her a hotel gown to change into so that he could take her dress and have it cleaned. 
The hotel attendant made sure that there was a constant supply of food and champagne. Within half an hour, the attendant returned to the room with the dress, perfectly dry-cleaned – as good as new. 
And they all went back down to rejoin the party. He knew that for the guest the dress was important, but more important was being part of the evening’s celebrations. And he made sure of that.
The good news is that empathy can be cultivated through training. It is up to organisations to harness this power of empathy. It always starts at the top. Embed empathy in your leadership development programme. 
Forward-thinking companies such as Google and Shell have already started on this journey with mindfulness and meditation practices as part of their programmes to develop more empathic leadership. 
Another powerful effort is to instil empathy in sales and service training programmes for frontline staff. By expressing empathy, the narrative of the conversation switches from you and me to “we”. 
To the customer, it shows that you are on the same side, and that is the key to unlocking service excellence.

SUVIT CHANSRICHAWLA is a next-generation human-resource consultant under the brand Serendipity & Co.