By: Jeff Toister (submitted by Carmen Gass)

Empathizing with a customer can sometimes be tough if you haven’t walked a mile in their shoes. This technique will help you understand customers better.

One way to deliver truly empathetic customer service is to imagine your customer is a close relative.
* You’d be sure to give a close relative your best advice.
* You’d demonstrate patience, understanding, and caring for a close relative, even if they were tough to deal with.
* You’d use your expertise to ensure your close relative had a great experience and didn’t encounter any problems.

Using this technique can make demonstrating empathy, ahem, relatively easy.