Why Tea and Sympathy Is Bad for Customer Service

Many people in customer service think that empathy and sympathy are the same. After all, both of these behaviours express that you care about the customer, and caring about your customer and, in fact, showing that you care about your customer is key to excellent customer service. So does it really matter whether you are being empathetic or sympathetic? And what’s the difference anyway?

Essentially, sympathy involves identifying with that person’s emotions and possibly even taking them on. What’s crucial to know is that when it comes to customer service, sympathy doesn’t provide solutions for the customer. In most cases it just ends up with two angry or emotional people instead of one.

If, for example, someone ordered a product and it arrived broken, a sympathetic response to the customer would be: “I’m so angry that parcel arrived broken, I told them it was important to package it right.” To the customer this says “I’m angry and you’re angry, but what about it?” At that point, it doesn’t help the customer that you’re also angry. What they really want is some kind of solution.

Empathy, on the other hand, is about acknowledging or understanding another person’s emotional state without becoming drawn into the emotion of the situation, and it produces a different response.

In our example above, an empathetic response might be: “I can understand why you are angry that the parcel was damaged.” Even though the response doesn’t yet define a solution, it’s off to a much better start. Someone who understands a situation and is still calm is more likely to do something about it. More importantly, because it is said in calm manner it communicates that although there is a problem, all is not lost. They are speaking to someone who is in control. It makes the customer stop and listen because if you have a solution for them, they won’t need to be angry any more.

Empathy allows you to connect with a customer without becoming emotionally involved. As a customer service agent you can remain professional and in control of the situation. That alone gives customers immense confidence in your ability to provide them with a solution.

Being sympathetic, on the other hand, can be draining. It can put you on an emotional roller-coaster ride and cause you to lose focus. Being in a highly emotional state can then cloud your ability to think clearly. You are therefore less likely to be able to find a solution if you’re feeling emotional about the problem in the same way that the customer is.

By showing genuine empathy (rather than sympathy), you will be able to provide a more professional customer service to the people you deal with. It will enable you to connect with customers without losing your focus and help you to solve their problem. A calm, confident and empathetic voice on the other end of the line is the first thing you can do to serve customers best.

For more tips on empathy in a customer service setting (including how to be empathetic in your online communication) take a look at my book, Delivering Effective Social Customer Service.