How to Use Empathy to Build Brand Loyalty

by ​Kimberly Maceda, Guest Contributor

Emotion is a powerful force. It can trigger action, influence decision, and most importantly establish a strong connection. In business, quality service and customer experience are provided through smooth, flawless transactions, but emotion creates a deeper sense of connection between customers and businesses that can lead to brand loyalty.​

The emotional connection between customers and businesses that can lead to brand loyalty.

It's a win-win situation for both parties. Understanding customers afford you insights for innovating your strategies, including your marketing automation campaigns. Customers will find more value in your business as their needs are being addressed properly. In return, businesses benefit from the long-term relationship and loyalty built from knowing your customers well, reflected by repeat businesses and better ROI.

So, how can your business use empathy to build a profitable brand loyalty? Here's a list of actionable tips you can practice to be empathic as a business.

Know Your Customers
Everything should start with your customers. Whether you are launching a new product and service or you already have one, conducting a customer research allows you to know the needs and expectations of your target market.

Your customer research should not end with demographics such as age and location. You have to dig deeper. You should know the factors they consider when shopping for options, their likes and dislikes, their reasons for buying and their goals, among others, to provide them with the best.

A simple survey can't generate these kinds of information. You need to sit down with representatives of your target market and listen to their stories. One-on-one interviews and focus group discussions are highly recommended to generate a substantial amount of data from their direct feedback. If face-to-face interviews are impossible, a telephone interview is your second best option.

The insights you get from conducting a proper customer research can help improve not only your marketing strategies but also other aspects of your business such as customer service and operations. Here, you are guaranteed that your business is designed according to who your customers are.

Gain Insights from Customers
Apart from you and your team, your customers are the ones who know who you are as a business. It pays to listen to them.

Do you have excellent customer service? Are your offers addressing their needs? Are there frictions in transactions? These and more questions will be answered if you ask for feedback from your customers and listen to their sentiments.

If you have an online store, you can ask for feedback on order confirmation page to know if customers had difficulty navigating your website or if there are options they wish they had. You can send email surveys within 3 to 5 days of order confirmation to gather more insights. You can ask about their overall experience or request for product reviews to know the things you need to improve on.

Posting polls in your social media brand pages is a great strategy. You can ask about the things that customers like or don't like. For instance, you can ask which product customers would like to get discounts on to guide your next promo.

These initiatives do not only provide insights, but customers will also feel that their voice matters.

Create an Empathy Map
An empathy map allows you to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Brainstorm with your team to map out the different aspects of customer experience as if you are your customers. You can either print out a template where they can write down their thoughts or have a whiteboard where you can jot down similar ideas.

Here are the sample questions for your empathy map:

• Think and Feel: What would customers be thinking and feeling?
• Hear: What genre of music are they into?
• Say and Do: What are the things they talk about with others? What actions and activities do they perform?
• Pain: What frustrates them? What are their worries and concerns?
• Gain: What are their goals and aspirations?

The outcome of your brainstorming session will give you a better picture of your customers.

Remember, your customers are humans, and humans have needs, frustrations, goals and aspirations. Connect with your customers the way humans do to build a lasting relationship and improve brand loyalty. Be emphatic as a business and everything else will follow.
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Author Bio:
Kimberly Maceda is a Content Writer for ActiveTrail. She writes for some top online marketing sites and blogging advice on email marketing and marketing automation to keep customers updated with the latest trends.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/activekimberly/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/activekimberly
Business website: https://www.activetrail.com/