The role of empathy in sales calls and overall sales performance

Role of Empathy in a Sales Call and its link to Overall Sales Performance

The Role of Empathy in a Sales Call and in Overall Sales Performance

Characteristics of Empathy

The term of empathy is used more and more every day, whether one refers to the professional or the personal life. Empathy refers to a broad range of emotions, and its various definitions have developed in time in order to reach as many aspects as possible in relationship with this ability. Different approaches to empathy have led to different definitions of the term.

For example, empathy is considered to represent a motivation that determines the individual to incline towards others, or the ability of putting into one's shoes. It is often translated as a sense of emotional similarity regarding the feelings of others, or as an affective response derived from the apprehension and comprehension of others' emotions.

Other specialists in the field provide a more scientific definition of empathy, explaining it as the complex form of psychological inference in which observation; memory, knowledge, and reasoning are combined in order to ensure insights into the thoughts and feelings of others. Other scientific approaches to empathy describe it as the ability to perceive the internal frame of reference of another person with accuracy and with the emotional components that allow someone to understand the feelings and causes of other persons' emotional states.

From these different views on empathy, one can understand that there are two main dimensions that ensure the frame in which empathy can be expressed: empathy is somewhat innate, given the fact that it has been observed that certain individuals are more naturally oriented towards understand others' feelings, and empathy is also the result of applied knowledge, which means that people can develop their abilities in this direction in order to improve their results in the field.

However, there are individuals that lack the ability to empathize. Such individuals are not neurotypical individuals, but experience a series of affections and disorders that prevent them from identifying the emotions of others or of themselves, of expressing such feelings, or experiencing some sort of affection from putting into one's shoes.

Basically, empathy represents the ability of identifying others' emotional states, of reasoning with these emotional and mental states, and of understanding what these emotions feel like and what causes them.

Although empathy is generally perceived as a positive emotion, it can also refer to negative connotations. These negative connotations are reflected by empathic anger and empathic distress. Empathic anger takes place when another person is suffering because of someone or something, and has direct implications in generating or preventing the applications of certain needs. Empathic takes place when someone feels the suffering of other persons, being contributory to ethical and moral behavior.

As mentioned above, most of us use empathy often, and most of the times it takes place involuntarily. Although sometimes empathy can cause discomforts to the persons in case, it is usually quite useful in understanding others' feelings, impressions, and points-of-view. It helps understand and anticipate the behavior of colleagues, superiors, customers, and others.

From a professional point-of-view, empathy is used in psychotherapy, education, fiction, philosophy, business, and others.

Empathy in Business

Empathy is recognized as one of the most important factors that ensure efficient relationships. This also includes business relationships. Although introducing empathy in serious business practices was somewhat amusing initially, the numerous theoretical works in the field, the successful application of practices based on empathy, and the studies conducted on this subject reveal the fact that empathy plays an important role in business performance.

Certain specialists in the field consider that the business world is expected to shift from the information age to the conceptual age. They consider that successful businesses will be represented by those that will promote strong interpersonal qualities. Empathy is one of these qualities. This change in the business world is considered to be determined by Abundance, Asia, and Automation.

Abundance is represented by the continuously increasing demand for aesthetically pleasing products and services. By Asia, specialists refer to the process of outsourcing, given the fact that numerous companies are outsourcing their production process and other activities of their business to emerging markets like China and India. Automation refers to the term's basic sense (Martinuzzi, 2006).

These specialists refer to empathy as being one of the most important factors that will help companies create competitive advantage. Such an ability is not easy to achieve, and it cannot be outsourced or automated. However, its importance to business is increasing, determining companies to develop strategies that focus on encouraging and supporting empathy.

Leadership development is another particular area where empathy is extremely important. Its importance is reflected by several reasons: the fact that companies use teams in order to achieve their objectives, globalization, and the need to retain talent. These teams are consisted of employees with different personalities, different professional objectives, and different expectations. Therefore, it is important for the leader to understand their behavior and motivation in order to be able to better stimulate them and increase their efficiency and productivity. This is where empathy interferes.

Globalization requires extensive use of empathy because of the fact that the phenomenon consists in cross cultural exchanges that are prone to communication errors and pall types of misunderstandings that interfere with the success of these business relationships. This is why empathy is important in today's globalized environment.

The retention of talented people is quite difficult for companies. This is because it is not easy to stimulate these people and to keep them motivated and attached to the company. In many cases the managers cannot even identify the needs, requirements and proper means of motivation for these people. This is why it is important for the leaders to be empathic, in order to be able to understand and anticipate the behavior of these employees.

Theorists and practitioners in the field consider that empathy has an important role in the following business areas:

Strategy

Marketing

Sales

Product development

Success

Empathy and strategy

When developing a strategy, companies try to identify the motivations that determine people to embrace certain purchasing behaviors. They use empathy in order to figure out what their customers are interested in, what they would purchase, how much they would pay for the products they are interested in, what qualities they look for when trying to find a suitable product. By putting themselves in their customers' position, companies are able to identify their needs and requirements (Berry, 2009).

Empathy and marketing

Marketing is one of the areas where empathy is mostly used. Marketers must get inside the mind of their targeted customers in order to understand what they want. This refers to products and services, but to their price also. Given the economic and financial crisis, the reduced incomes of people determine them to buy less, to buy cheaper, and to modify their buying behavior. This is extremely challenging to marketers, because they must rapidly adapt to these changes, and even anticipate them in order to reduce the threats of competitors and maintain or strengthen their position on the market.

Empathy and sales

Sales is another area where empathy is required in order to be successful. This is because sales persons must listen to the customers and understand what they need. By understanding the needs and motivations of customers, sales persons are able to develop strategies that are adapted in each situation in accordance with the personality and needs of the customer, and then to orient the client towards a situation that favors both the customer and the sales person. Empathy basically consists in listening and understanding the customer.

Empathy and product development

Specialists agree upon the fact that successful product development is based on understanding the need for a product or service. Anticipating these needs and sometimes generating them depends on the ability to empathize of the people involved in the product development process.

Empathy and success

As mentioned above, in order to be successful it is required to build a relationship with customers that is based on trust, on listening and understanding their needs. Anticipating their needs and behavior is intended to help companies create competitive advantage and to maintain a strong position on the market. These objectives can be achieved by developing and implementing strategies based on several important factors, including abilities like empathy.

Certain management consultants have a more modern view on business strategies, in comparison with traditional business models. These management consults have analyzed the most important brands in the world and identified empathy as being the WOW factor that these successful brands have in common.

These empathic business models focus on:

Product: Nescafe, Nike

Price: Google, IKEA

Place: eBay, MTV

Promotion: Amazon, Nokia

In other words, an empathic business model means that the companies developing such a strategy involve the customers in the business model, as opposed to traditional approaches. This is intended to improve customer experience and to increase customer loyalty (Oosterhout, 2010). Such a business model is more flexible and allows the company in case to adapt its strategy to the changes determined by the business environment. Specialists that analyze this subject refer to this as The New Age of Innovation.

The empathic business model developed around the product assumes that customers are invited to participate in the development of the product in case. They are allowed to present their ideas and to get involved in the actual production of the product in case.

The empathic business model based on price consists in strategies that offer a very low price or no charge pat all in exchange of certain information that can be used for advertising purposes, or for the fact that the customer must carry or assembly the product in case.

The empathic business model based on place are usually related to the use of the Internet, that allows customers to access the product or service whenever they want, from wherever they want.

The empathic business model based on promotion refers to strategies developed in order to create products-based n the buying behavior that has been observed on other customers.

Empathy in Sales

Empathy has become more and more important in the sales activity. Sales persons that are not capable of empathy are proven to have poor results in comparison with those able to introduce empathy in their customer persuasion repertoire.

This is because sales persons empathize with their customers by putting themselves in their position and trying to figure out what is on their mind. They try to identify the needs and requirements that determine their purchasing behavior (Mortensen, 2006). They must also identify more sensitive aspects, like financial ones. In other words, they must figure out how much the customer in case is able and willing to pay for a certain product or service.

In some cases, not even the customer is perfectly aware of what he really needs. The sales person must therefore help him identify this need and satisfy it, by building a relationship with the customer based on trust and on understanding the situation of the customer (CREIO, 1998).

When making the sales call, the seller must take into consideration the fact that there are several types of customers, with different behaviors, different response patterns, different purchase motivations, different needs, and different personality (Cherniss, 2010). Each type of customer must be handled differently in order to achieve the objective of the sales call.

The primary objective of the sales call consists in determining the potential customer to listen to the seller's offer, in other words to inform the customer about the product or service in case. The secondary objective of the sales call consists in indentifying or creating a need from the customer towards the product or service the sales caller is trying to advertise.

Such a response from the customer becomes more and more difficult to achieve. This is because customers feel harassed by these sales calls, and most of the times the sales persons that call them irritate and annoy customers. In such cases, even if the customer could be potentially interested in the product or service in case, the initial response is to reject the sales person's offer and to address other manners in which the customer can purchase the needed product.

This rejection attitude from customers is the result of defective management regarding the activity of call centres and of their employees. Since the establishment of call centers and phone advertising, the sales callers implemented unsuitable strategies during these calls, determining customers to reject even the idea of having to receive such a call. This leads to reduced efficiency.

It is therefore recommended that call centre employees are thoroughly trained in order to gain solid knowledge regarding the typology of the customer, its behavior and motivations. The understanding of these characteristics allows sales call personnel to rapidly identify the type of customer they are encountering and to adjust their sales call strategy in accordance with the typology of the customer.

The Role of Empathy in a Sales Call

There are several types and levels of listening, or empathy:

Passive listening or not listening

Pretend listening

Biased listening or projective listening

Misunderstood listening

Attentive data only listening

Active listening

Empathic listening or empathetic listening

Facilitative listening

These are the types of listening portrayed by sales persons in certain sales calls. Most of them are inefficient in result in not being able to convince the potential customer or to even irritate the customer in case.

In the case of the passive listening, the customer observes noise in the background, and practically ignores the sales person that called him. In this case, it is likely that the customer does not even memorize the name of the company or the product or service that the sales person is trying to promote.

In the case of the pretend listening, it is obvious that the caller is not really interested in the motivation and behavior of the customer (Chapman, 2009). He does not take into consideration what the customer is trying to tell him, but continues to display some sort of scenario that he usually tells all customers. The customer can tell from the sales person's behavior that he is not trying to understanding his feelings and needs, and therefore usually decides to respond in the same manner, by rejecting the product or service the sales person is promoting.

Biased or projective listening is characterized by selective behavior. In other words, the sales person making the call tends to disregard some of the aspects that the customer wants to discuss, and chooses to focus only on the aspects of interest to the sales person in case. This is another example of inefficient sales calls.

Misunderstood listening is similar to biased listening. In this case, the sales person assumes that the customer has certain needs that do not correspond with the reality that the customer is trying to explain. This further leads to defective communication and several misunderstandings.

Attentive listening is a more efficient strategy used by sales persons during the calls they make to potential or existing customers. In this case, the customer can observe that the sales person is interested in his opinion and actually listens to what the customer wants to say. But what the customer may not realize is that the sales person is using certain manipulation techniques in order to persuade him into buying the product or service in case.

Empathic listening is one of the most important strategies that can be applied by ales persons is the calls they make. This is because in this case the sales person is really listening to what the customer wants to say and is really interested in identifying the needs and motivations of the customer in order to find a solution that satisfies both parties.

Facilitative listening is even more efficient than empathic listening, because this type of listening is oriented towards the satisfaction of the customer.

Having empathic abilities does not suffice in developing and implementing an efficient sales call strategy. This strategy must be adapted in accordance with the particularities of each situation and each customer (Richardson, 1997). This is why it is important that the sales caller in secure regarding the typology of the customer. There are several types of customers that the sales callers deal with. Some of them are irritated, some of them are bored customer, while others are more shy and should be treated in accordance.

The irritated customer has received several sales calls, which were not properly managed, leading to the irritation of the potential customer. This determines the customer in case to reject any other sales call he might receive, no matter the subject of the call. It is recommended that such customers are addressed by experience sales persons that have the ability of persuading them into at least presenting the offer and information regarding the product or service in case.

In addition to empathy, such calls required great patience from sales callers. When dealing with irritated customers, the caller must make use of such patience and disregard the negative attitude of customers (Cherniss, 1999). This is because many sales callers, especially inexperienced ones, have the tendency to become just as irritated as the customer in case is, which makes it difficult to reach the call's objectives.

There are customers that are bored, but may be willing to listen to the offer that the sales person intends to make. This is the type of customer that sales callers should insist on. In this case it is important to attract the customer's attention and to switch his attitude from a bored to an interested one. This can be achieved by focusing on the aspects of the product that create competitive advantage, on the characteristics that other products do not have, or on the novelties and innovations that the product or service in case ensure.

Also, there are customers that are simply not interested in the product or service the sales caller intends to promote, but cannot refuse the caller, so they listen to its offer without any intention of actually purchasing something. The sales caller should be able to identify such a customer and adopt the suitable strategy in order to raise the potential customer's curiosity about the product.

Empathy Improvement

Call centre managers are more and more interesting improving the empathic abilities of their employees, given the fact that it has been proven that empathy has a direct influence on the sales performance of staff. In the specialists' opinion, the sales persons' empathetic response must satisfy the following conditions:

An awareness of the state of mind of the other person

An understanding of the condition

A personal identification with the situation in case

A suitable affective response

As mentioned above, it is important that the sales caller is able to identify the typology of each customer, in order to determine the type of strategy that should be used so that the sales call reaches its objectives (Cherniss, 1998). In addition to this, the sales caller must be able to identify the emotional state in which the other person finds itself. If the sales caller identifies these coordinates and behaves in accordance with them, the customer in case will observe this behavior and will consider that the sales caller is actually interested in his situation.

In order to improve empathic abilities of call centre employees, managers can develop and implement a series of strategies that address activities like: role playing games, training exercises, introducing an empathic buddy system, and others. This is intended to increase sales persons' efficiency and productive, and to increase customer satisfaction (Mulkeen, 2008).

The role of empathy in sales calls and sales performance is acknowledged by numerous specialists in the field, that consider the ability of being empathic as an important factor of influence in the sales activity. This is because a sales person that has a developed empathic ability is able to better and more quickly adapt to the feedback received from the customer (Ingram et al., 2007). Even if sales persons are able to develop and improve empathic abilities, it takes practice to develop and implement efficient sales call strategies. This can be achieved through intensive practice (Leung, 2003). Therefore, it is recommended that difficult sales calls are handled by experienced sales persons.