Empathy: The Lost Art in Customer Engagements

and how kids can teach us to be more empathetic

Disclaimer: This is my private opinion and experiences and is not an official Salesforce post.

Why this post

Have you ever been in meetings where you have been pulled in last minute to justify your solutions high price? Or your Management wants to take a “Big Bang” approach instead of an offer they consider too small? Maybe the Account Executive (AE) reached out to you and asked you to convince your customer with a bigger vision by giving a “great show”?

Usually this results in conversations with your customer where the account team, or yourself, try to explain how your solution will not only solve today’s challenges but also any of their future requirements. Perhaps you have heard analogies on how they are getting a Ferrari with your solution. Hence the higher price.

Approaching deals like that, having dozens of conversations and not identifying what your customers needs are and if your approach will be sufficient to meet their specific needs, will likely remain small or might be lost already.

This post is going to cover why a “great show” or the “big bang” are not going to help to shift your customers mindset and how empathy does. I want to share a short story that made me realize that we need more empathy in customer conversations which helps to avoid running into these situations in first place.

The importance of empathy – taught by a 4 year old

2 weeks ago I went out for a run. After 20 exhausting minutes I got back home, desperate for water and a shower. I was done for the day, at least I thought so. While sneaking in before I caught my daughters attention, there she was. Standing behind me and saying “Did you go for a run, baba (turkish for dad)?”, “Yes” I responded. “Okay baba. It’s my turn. I want to workout with you now”…giving me the innocent big smile and wide open eyes which I can never say no to. So, we went outside and continued working out. Burpees, stretching and crazy movements she taught me.

Last weekend she asked if we could workout again. I was really proud and loved our new little ritual -crazy morning sport. After our workout, she looked at me and proudly shared how she showed the other kids in her Kindergarten group some of the exercises that we have been doing and how she was the only one who was able doing them. She added that the other kids weren’t good enough and how much better she is. Typical for kids I would say and nothing wrong with that in her center of the universe. Kids love comparing themselves whether it’s their age, strength, height, how much they can eat etc. What she couldn’t know is that she hit a nerve with that statement.

I am allergic to people excessively comparing themselves to others as it’s toxic and will have negative side effects for yourself. Nothing wrong with looking up to others and trying to reach your idols standards. Excessively comparing yourself to others however usually ends up in a disadvantage for yourself. I prefer to becoming a better version of yourself. Another thing I am allergic to is not teaching others if there is something they want to learn from you….I am getting sidetracked here so what’s my point?

My daughter hit a nerve as she said something that I already have life experience with. Positive and negative. She doesn’t. I asked myself how I should make her aware that she should be proud of being good at something, without hurting others by reminding them that they are not.

How do I explain something to her that she hasn’t even experienced yet?

Reflecting the situation I considered two options: A) Letting it go and let her make her experiences herself B) Sharing my experiences in a way that makes sense for her in her stage of life and letting her choose on how to deal with such a situation next time. I chose the latter. To do so, I had to limit my vocabulary and point of the story to an extend that she would understand. Leaving out all complex topics and abstractions. Instead I made it specific to her situation and explained it in a way that meets her reality. Her center of the world.

So our conversation continued with something similar to:

Me: “Explain me the situation you were in and how you ended up showing the exercises” – Trying to understand the whole situation from her perspective to avoid misjudging my understanding.

She explained…

Me: “So you are saying that your friends tried doing the same exercises as you did but they couldn’t. Was there a particular reason on why they couldn’t”….Reassuring my understanding, making sure that there are no other reasons that are not on my radar and giving her the chance to correct me in case I misunderstood.

She responded…

Me: “How did telling them that you are better in this particular exercise make you feel and why did you choose to say that?”. Making sure I understand her reasoning, before we elaborate other options.

Here, I noticed that she didn’t really get where I was going as this was probably too abstract and perhaps she is missing situations she can compare it to.

Me: “Do you remember when you asked me if I could show you how to do this exercise? How would you feel if I just tell you that I am so much better at it but don’t show you how?”. Putting this situation in context that she can grasp. A life experience of hers that she can directly compare it to.

She thought….and responded: “I would say that’s mean”.

Me: “I agree. So what could you have done in your situation”…..you see where I am going with this.

At the end she even said how she showed them how to execute these exercises but simply didn’t share this information with me earlier. To her, this was an irrelevant part of the story and proving that she is “better” is the important point. Eventually I added some typical dad advises I am not sure she or myself understood. “Life is not about…..” Something cheesy that sounded like a Rocky Balboa quote.

Empathy and putting myself into her shoes helped to have a meaningful conversation on this topic. Empathy in this case also means to acknowledge that she doesn’t have the same life experience as I do. Therefore, just stating the importance of learning from each other or saying that “showing off” doesn’t have any benefit isn’t enough. It has to make sense for her stage in life. Only then there was a chance of her re-considering the situation and evaluating different options on how she could have responded in such a situation.

How does this relate to our customer conversations you may ask? Let me explain:

Our customers often don’t have the same amount of experience as we do when it comes to choosing software solutions. While it’s a daily task for us it may be a once in a lifetime decision for them. Therefore, comparisons that they can’t directly relate to will not help them to re-evaluate the situation. It is our duty to communicate in a way that makes sense for them.
Empathy, putting ourselves in our customers shoes and acknowledging that they have different criteria and life experiences will help us having a meaningful conversation and a better outcome.

The Ferrari that your customers don’t need

Let’s come back to the initial situation that has been described at the beginning. You as a Solution Engineer are brought into a deal to “rescue” the situation and broaden the scope of the customer by providing a “vision” or pull off your “great show” – whatever that means.

The AE comes up with a great analogy, your solution is a Ferrari. On top, your companies revenue increased steadily over the past few years and that’s why your customer would be crazy if they don’t make a decision in your favor. After all it’s a Ferrari produced by a company with increasing revenue every year so they must like whatever you have to offer.

I have heard these kinds of analogies too often and fortunately they fail. The idea behind these kinds of comparisons are simple: Your offering comes at a price but hey it’s totally worth it because it’s the best out there and will cover all your customers challenges. Not only today’s but also tomorrow’s. I know it’s harsh if I just say this analogy never works so let’s break it down a little more.

Think about it. Ferrari’s are more expensive, maintenance costs are really high, brakes can cost you around $6k, only selected repair shops are specialized in fixing them, it may shine on the outside but it’s certainly not meant for long rides, family trips…..you get the idea. This is a poor comparison in itself and your customers will probably tell you the same. Something along the lines of “I just need to get from A to B and don’t need a Ferrari for that” or more specifically “I understand your solution is very powerful but I only need optimized Lead Management and Sales execution. Nothing else!”.

If your customer is only asking for optimized Lead Management and Sales execution they will likely have a narrower look into their departments requirements and how to minimize effort in Lead- and Opportunity Management. They will not consider the bigger picture:

The different channels that Leads should be captured – to meet their customers demand and choice of channels
Automating customer journeys with Marketing solutions – to personalize content and make their customers feel listened, to monitor campaign efforts vs. results and sunset inefficient channels
A self-service portal for case prioritization to
- A) allow customers to search for answers themselves and
- B) saving time & money by only letting them create cases if the questions can’t be answered by themselves
Service automation – to keep customer frustration low and increase operational excellence, field service – to let your customers easily schedule repair appointments etc.
Total Cost of Ownership Calculations and the impact on business if IT is slowed down by poor technical decisions

In other words they are not in charge of the organizations bigger objective and will only focus on their specific needs. You could argue that you are speaking to the wrong people at this stage in your Opportunity but sometimes this is how it starts and you need to first prove yourself before you get the chance to speak to decision makers or executives directly, if at all. The question remains – how do we deal with this difficult situation if a “great show” or the Ferrari is not an option?

Short- vs. Long-term Investments

To answer this questions, let’s have a look at the intention and identify better ways to describe what you actually want to say.

The internal intention here is clearly increasing revenue and your customers are aware of that. Nothing wrong with this but it’s important to not hide the fact that your Sales team and your company will benefit if your customer buys more. No need to pretend that you are doing this without any self interest. However, you can prove how not only you but also they can benefit from increasing the scope and that there will be a better outcome for both. Therefore, your external intention should be guiding your customer to make a well thought long-term investment vs. short-term.

Instead of the Ferrari or revenue story you and your customer can mutually build a business case where you compare their plan for choosing a software solution for a single department with minimum scope, creating siloed applications with different technologies and letting every department choose their own software vs. going with a platform approach and simply enable technical capabilities when needed. The monthly price tag with that approach may look high at first but overall it can bring down the total cost of ownership for your customer and justify an investment.

As your customer may not be used to thinking in these categories and business cases but you are, it requires a shift in mindset for them. How do you initiate and communicate this change? Be more empathetic.

For example: Explain them how you have seen another customer in a similar situation only considering the price of software solutions and choosing the cheapest offer – acknowledging the situation and setting up a story they can relate to. How this approach resulted in a failed project and and how they got back to you eventually but ended up spending much more than anticipated – raising awareness and sharing experiences that other customers in the same situation made. Offer them to speak to these customers and let them share experiences between each other.

By being empathetic and not simply forcing your opinion upon them, it’s more likely that you will manage to initiate the shift in mindset and guide your customer to a better decision. While there is no guarantee for success the chances are higher than pulling off “the great show”.

Education can also be part of your business case. Where you show how building siloed solutions from scratch comes with different challenges they may not have considered yet e.g. the need for different technical skills, additional integration efforts, slowing down IT and the expected business solutions as a result…and therefore overall increased costs. This will help them understanding how there are more things to consider and why broadening the scope may make more sense. A shift in mind in best case!

What is my suggestion in dealing with situations where a deal seems stuck or where your internal goals don’t align with your customers?

Engage your customers if you are not sure how to move forward with the deal

The beauty of Solution Engineering and working with customers is that every situation is different and there is not THE answer to a challenging situation as described here. Some would say that a solid Discovery needs to be conducted to really understand your customers situation and then show them how your solution is going to solve it. Others would argue that C-Level engagement on both sides is needed and start out a plan on setting up a meeting. Then there are customer references who have been in a similar situation and you want them to meet each other….

There are many posts on how to conduct Discoveries and why they’re key to any deal. There are also great articles on how to speak to executives and get C-Level buy-in so I will not focus on these topics. I want to focus on Empathy which we sometimes take for granted and don’t apply it deliberately. Something that I find is so important in conversations but unfortunately not measured as part of our professional careers and therefore easier to ignore.

In many organizations the decisions on how to approach a deal in a stuck situation are happening in internal meetings referred to as “Account Planning”. Where typically 5-10 people gather to speak about the situation, make a decision and get back to their customer with THE optimal suggestion on how to proceed e.g. a workshop or return on investment calculation. For some reason I rarely see the customer being involved in these discussions and the decision process that is involved. We should include customers to these “internal meetings” more often and prove to be an empathetic partner and not simply a software vendor.

Hence, my suggestion is to speak to your customer about the challenges that you are having with the deal and how you think they are not only missing important topics to consider in their evaluation but how they may limit themselves by not thinking bigger about their project. Exchange ideas with them on how to best move forward and figure out the next steps mutually.

In Summary – How to show more empathy and have better customer engagements as a result

Don’t try to come up with the great idea that will rescue the deal without involving your cusomter. Speak to them. Make them aware that you think they’re missing important facts in their evaluation and help them understand how there could be a better approach. Ideally combine this with a lucrative commercial offering and business case and show how they not only solve multiple business challenges by choosing a platform approach and multiple products at once but also save money in the long-run. Not only because you can provide a better price but also because it brings down the total cost of ownership and saves them integration efforts. If you lined out these options and the customer is still not willing to change their approach, make a clear decision on when you will stop trying to change their minds. Try to focus on projects with a more promising outcome and invest your time wisely.

Ditch the Pitch – Speak about relatable reference cases instead of telling them how great your company is. Not necessarily a success story but a conversation.
Be Humble – Your companies reputation and previous successes are not enough to convince your customers to make an investment. Keep this in mind while approaching them and try to understand what they really need to make a decision.
Involve your Customers – Involve your customers in your thought process and potential conflict in interests. No one likes if decisions are simply made on behalf of them.
Work together – Work on a mutual approach on moving forward that works best for both and always consider the current situation your customer is in. They don’t have the same experience as you do.
Put yourself in their shoes
- How would you react if the Sales team from a software company would tell you need to buy more in order to be successful?
- What suggestions would you like and how would you like to be approached?
- When would you go to your manager and tell them that you think there is this one vendor you should definitely buy from? What concerns would you have when doing so?
Know when to stop – In some cases the best approaches don’t work for a number of different reasons. Make yourself aware on when you will stop trying too hard to convince someone who doesn’t want to listen and focus your shift on a different Opportunity. Keep your promise to yourself

Be more Empathetic! – change your traditional approach and speak to your customers in a relatable way. It must make sense for them in their current situation and their environment.

Did you experience any situations where you believe empathy would have changed the outcome? How did you respond to them? What other suggestions do you have? I would love hearing about them.

Demen