Do you want to make empathy-driven decisions and show empathy to your customers? You need to research to get insights into your consumers. But you need to know and understand our customers first.
Once you have deep consumer insights, you can successfully leverage the power of empathy to push your brand to the next level. And establish a lasting and profitable relationship with your customers.
How do I infuse empathy into your business? Well, it starts with user research – by infusing empathy into the research, you can garner valuable insights and meet the changing user expectations.
Why you need empathy in research
No matter your business, your audiences are made up of real humans, not data points. But it is easy for researchers to start seeing their audience as numbers – or data points – instead of individuals with real needs. Researchers often lose perspective when conducting research, hindering their ability to get deep insights into their consumers.
Researchers usually focus on what people say instead of understanding consumers' sentiments and feelings. They forget that their consumer behavior can tell them much more than the answers ever can.
Now you must be wondering how to understand your consumer behavior. Well, in this technology-driven era, it is easy. Using technologies like facial coding, voice AI, and sentiment analysis, you can easily understand consumer behavior at a granular level.
The premise here is that the more you can uncover your consumers' feelings, the more empathetic you can be, the better action you can take, and the better the message, product, and service you can deliver.
Why traditional market research methods are flawed
It is no secret that business needs data to make better decisions. It empowers brands to decide based on facts, trends, and statistical numbers. Data holds power and can be incredibly helpful but basing decisions on data alone is dangerous.
Why? Because people are not ordinary, there is often a difference between what people say and what they feel. It’s one reason traditional research methods like surveys and questionnaires do not give you an accurate picture of your customers.
These methods focus on “what” rather than digging deeper into the “why.” And that's where qualitative research methods like video interviews can help.
In a video conversation, you can hear what people are saying, see how they are feeling, and ask follow-up questions to clarify the how and why. This understanding will lead you to better solutions. And that’s why qualitative research is vital for every business’s success.
How to make empathy-driven decisions
Here are a few steps to ensure that you bring empathy to your decisions:
1. Know your customers
One of the best ways to develop customer empathy is to understand the customer's experience from their viewpoint. To do that, you need to converse with your customers.
For example, you might discover that your customers require 24/7 support. In this case, it could be worth hiring a team of overseas support agents through an EOR service like Remote to ensure around the clock assistance. Actions like this may require additional expenditure, but they’ll go a long way in demonstrating your commitment to customer satisfaction and loyalty.
You can have live conversations with your customers to understand them better. And use these agile insights to deepen your empathy for customers and make better decisions.
2. Tailor your decisions to your customers' needs
We all know customers are the key to our business success, which is why every brand tries hard to deliver a flawless CX and meet customers' expectations. But till now, only a few brands have been able to fulfill consumer expectations.
Why? Because it's tough to gain deep consumer insights as most of the qualitative consumer data, from FGDs to one-to-one interviews, are unstructured and not in a centralized location. So, it’s tough to drive from it.
Though you can quickly parse and analyze this data using analytical tools, there needs to be more insight into why consumers feel the way they do. To generate fast and reliable consumer insights, move away from data sprawl, and focus on creating a single source of truth and using these insights to make empathy-driven decisions.
3. Humanize your brand
To make empathy-driven decisions, you need to know your customers. How do you do that? You can use a video conferencing platform or a tool specifically designed to conduct these conversations. You can leverage these insights to fulfill your consumer expectations.
The correct use of empathy in business will not only make your messages more natural, but it will also make your customers more interested in your brand.
Conclusion
As consumer needs evolve in this changing landscape, forging deep-rooted connections has never been more crucial in making sure they choose you over your competitors. And that is why empathetic consumer research has become a top priority for businesses.
