Recently I had a problem with a new appliance and contacted the manufacturer, phoning the service number provided in the warranty information. I called on a Monday morning and was greeted with a robotic voice reciting the familiar refrain: “Due to unusually high call volume, all our customer service representatives are busy dealing with other callers. Your call will be maintained in sequence . . .” etc.
I decided to wait, putting the call on speakerphone and proceeding with other tasks at my desk. Since I was planning to work at my desk this particular morning anyway, the main annoyance was listening to the unpleasant repetitive music loop frequently punctuated by the robotic voice reminding me: “all of our customer service representatives are busy dealing with other callers . . . “ etc.
After 30 minutes of listening to this background irritation I began to wonder how much longer this was going to go on. Making customers wait more than 30 minutes seemed to me excessive.
Still waiting…
Another 30 minutes went by. At this point I considered hanging up so I wouldn’t have to listen to the recording any more. It was starting to grate on me. Then I became stubborn; I’d come this far and if it always took this long to get through I didn’t want to start all over again at another time. Surely they would respond soon.
At one hour and 30 minutes I began to feel some frustration. Had my call been misplaced? This was terrible service. I already had reasons to be dissatisfied with this company prior to phoning and those reasons were getting bigger in my mind as I waited. What a way to treat customers!
At one hour and forty minutes a cheerful woman’s voice came on the line. She said: “Hello. How can I help you?”
I had no intention of being rude but I did want to register my dissatisfaction with the situation. I said as evenly as possible: “Before we discuss the reason for my call, I want you to know that I’ve been on hold for an hour and forty minutes. That seems like a long time to leave customers on hold.”
There was a pause. I expected her perhaps to apologize and say something like; “I’m sorry you had to wait so long. What can I do for you?”
She didn’t do that. Instead she said in a genuine tone: “An hour and forty minutes! It must have taken a lot of patience for you to have waited that long.”
Choosing Empathy
When she said this I noticed that my negative energy dissipated almost instantly. I felt disarmed. The simple act of her acknowledging my patience (which had been fraying badly) not only released my negativity but also inspired me to demonstrate more of what she had acknowledged. I immediately recognized the power of what she had done.
The response I had expected was sympathy: an expression of how she might have felt about my situation (“I’m sorry you had to wait so long.”) Although sympathy might have been a socially acceptable response, it would not have shifted my state. My resistance to the situation would probably have remained.
Instead she chose empathy. Empathy is the art of putting ourselves in another person’s mental or emotional shoes: of understanding and appreciating their thoughts and/or feelings. When she expressed empathy for my experience (“It must have taken a lot of patience for you to have waited that long.”), I felt both understood and acknowledged. As a result I felt no need to complain further. I was able to quickly release my negative feelings toward the situation.
Empathy is one of the most powerful tools we can employ in our interactions with others. When we walk, however briefly, in the shoes of another, we find our common ground.
*Explore the power of empathy in our program Feedback Conversations.
