Skip to main content

empathy and service, required?


When you think about the definition of empathy, which is to understand and share feelings of another, you may be curious why this would be included in posts regarding the operation of a service business. When I think about empathy from a service technicians point of view, and one who spent most of his career troubleshooting problems, empathy for me is as strong as one of my previous posts on LSD. The closer a person can get to understanding the initial design intent of a control system or operating environment, the better off they will be in suggesting potential modifications, repairs or updates. I never really thought about the sales side of the equation until my later years, and of course as you can imagine empathy plays a significant role with a salesperson, the closer you get to understanding the customers challenges, the higher the probability of close.



Over the years, while interacting with many different service providers, I have discovered that sometimes people just get lazy.   When you're designing a solution or attempting to repair a problem you must invest the time to put your head where your customer is, or where the previous person who designed the system was. This step is difficult,  it's certainly a lot easier to tell your customer this is how it should be done based on your own experience. Not to say that intuition and experience does not have value, it certainly does, however if you are always limiting your perspectives to just your own how will you ever learn? What is it about your solution that you think can't be improved? One challenge is; are you willing to take the time to really understand what's going on?  If you  aren't then don't be surprised when your service business is perceived as a pure commodity.



-----

Next post:  are manufacturers the best source of information?

-----
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In$pired

As the steam from Avid Andy's coffee fogged his glasses on this crisp January morning, he reflected on last year and thought enthusiastically about the year ahead.   Sometimes the noise of business is deafening, we rarely take the time to contemplate our moves, instead are often thrown one direction or another.   Hey, face it, if you are reading posts to gain perspective you fall in the group of folks who pride themselves as obsequious hoop-jumpers.   We live to help others and expect that all of those around us feel the same way.   I just love Influential Irene.   Okay, it is out in the open, she is an inspiration for me and so many others.   Irene reminds folks every year, without fail, these three statements which she fondly refers to as "the punchline" (although this is no joke).   Businesses, of any size, will be successful if they remember that it is people that make a company.   Put this advice into practice, today: Sincerity |...
Post a Comment
Read more

expert at everything...not a problem

Well... I would say sometimes there certainly is a perceived notion that one person is an expert at everything. For the worker "everything" may be defined as the specific area in which you were hired or are constantly scheduled. Our opinions are frequently influenced off of past experience, or information we've received from their coworkers. Unfortunately this only gives us partial insight to that workers expertise and often is limited to their most recent history. Narrowly focused accounting is made of the skills that this individual possess. Come on, can't we figure out a way to leverage all of the skills of a particular worker? One of the challenges has always been that relationship between the activities which need to be accomplished and the myriad skills of individuals within your workforce. In addition, even if you could inventory and get a pretty good handle on the skill sets, they are constantly changing (with any luck) and thus the ineffective process of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Single Point of Entry

Cloud platforms, with all of their interconnected tools and functions, are perceived by some as overwhelming.  Sure change is hard, yet it meets considerable resistance when the worker must deal with too many factors, such as: their anxiety related to computing having too many choices Both of these, along with many others not mentioned, make it too easy to revert back to comfortable habits.  This is the reason that so many organizations stop at email and file management on their transformation journey.  One solution to be considered is allowing the workers to get comfortable with a single point of entry (SPoE).  That is a single application that can serve as the launching pad for all digital tools.   A well executed SPoE provides value for the office and remote workers alike.  Imagine that you had just one business application, a single place that you would travel to and jump in to meaningful digital tools.  Sound familiar?  Sure, f...
Post a Comment
Read more