On brands and empathy
I'd nearly forgotten about it, but a few weeks back my friend Jeremy Goldman asked if I'd be willing to talk about my "big idea" for brands and marketing for 2017. I've always considered myself an accidental marketer (side note: When I say that to people, they almost always think I have said "dental marketer," which makes me laugh for some reason), as I have spent the vast majority of my career as a journalist and am not comfortable on the other side of that wall, really.I thought about it a bit and said sure. I mean, as a "marketer" - accidental or not - I am supposed to be marketing myself, right? Plus, Jeremy's a great friend and I'm happy to help him out when I'm able.Without thinking very hard, I knew what my "big idea" was going to be.Empathy.I emailed that off to Jeremy and his crew, and a few days later they got back to me with some questions. They were thoughtful questions, and made me think a bit deeper about what I really meant.Now, truth be told, I didn't really know what I meant by "empathy" when I said it. I just felt it was something we all needed a little more of. Perhaps now more than ever. And what is empathy, really? A companion to sympathy, it's actually feeling the emotions of another person. Not just giving lip service, but actually feeling and understanding what that person is experiencing.That's simple enough. But what did I mean about it in relation to brands? I had no idea.Jeremy's e-book came out today, reminding me of my thoughts on the subject, and I wanted to share them here.The first question I didn't really answer.
How do brands exercise empathy while keeping their core values consistent/on brand?Truthfully, we’d all be in a better place if empathy was consistent with all brands’ core values or were always “on brand.”
I'm kind of a pain in the butt, I guess. But it's true. Why should it be so "off-brand" for a company to exercise empathy?
Occasionally brands offer lip service and not deliverables on supporting their consumers. How can brands learn from this?I am not a believer in “the customer is always right” because the customer is not always right. But showing a bit of kindness and understanding toward an angry customer is going to pay off 99% of the time (there’s no pleasing everyone). Treating consumers like people and not just money machines reminds them that you’re also a person.
As someone who's worked retail and answered angry phone calls in multiple newsrooms, I can tell you absolutely that the customer is very often not "right." That still doesn't help you. If that's the only reaction you have to them, then you are in the wrong. Treat people like people. When you treat them like people, they remember that you are a person, too.In my last newsroom job, I was metro editor and got a lot of random calls from people. Often, they started off yelling and got madder from there. After a few tries at answering their complaints or questions, only to be talked over or ignored, I'd ask them a simple question: "Do you just want to vent? If you just want to yell about this and don't want an answer, that's fine. I totally understand that. But if that's the case, I won't try to interrupt you to explain. Just let me know."Something like that, anyway.Almost every single time I did that, the person on the other end stopped. They calmed down almost immediately. Oh, wait. I'm talking to a person. This person is just doing her job. Maybe I should listen. We'd often part the call friends and even if they still didn't like the answer, they appreciated that someone took the time to give them an answer. And they would always apologize for having been so angry at the start of the call. An apology I would always brush off as unnecessary, but thank them all the same for offering it.
How does empathy start from the inside out? Are there any businesses that excel at showing empathy towards their own employees?The first company that came to mind is Costco. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just parroting something I read somewhere sometime, and did some research and became an even bigger fan than I already was. They pay all their employees (from cashiers on up) a living wage, benefits are good, everyone has a line into the CEO, and people work there for their entire careers they love it so much.And people who shop at Costco? They benefit from it. The people who work at Costco want to be there. They like their jobs and their employers. So they’re happier when dealing with customers. Customers who will wait on enormous lines to check out and don’t get all cranky like you’ll see at just about any other store anywhere. Because the employees are treated with respect and shown empathy from the very top, everyone benefits and it’s the third-largest retailer in the nation (behind only Wal-Mart and Amazon).
Seriously. Have you seen some of the lines to check out at Costco? They're huge. But I've also never seen customers getting all angry in line or yelling at the cashiers. Even when it's super-crowded, the experience of shopping at Costco is far preferable to most big-box stores. Most stores, period. Because from the top down, the company treats people like people.
Does empathy always align with social consciousness? And as consumers are becoming more socially aware, is it always best to project that onto brand values?That’s a tough question to answer. First off, I don’t think it’s that consumers are becoming socially aware - it’s just that more companies recognize that emphasizing those values can have a benefit. But does empathy always align with social consciousness? I’d say not necessarily, but probably more often than not. Or, at least, it should.
I really don't think that people are becoming more socially aware. It's just become more expected that companies will exhibit some social awareness. Because that can be profitable, companies are seeing more reason to tout those values. Let's not fool ourselves.So. Am I being a Pollyanna, thinking that the Next Big Idea could be empathy?Nah. I don't actually think it will be. It's just what I think would be valuable.