A lot of managers tend to disregard the value of empathy. However, in most organizations, empathy is an important skill that employees need to master. It can break or make sales, prevent compromising situations, build trust and cooperation with clients or consumers, and establish long-term relationships. Though indirect, mastering empathy can contribute to profit generation.
In simple terms, empathy is the capacity to feel and understand what another person is feeling. It is the ability to gauge those emotions as if putting oneself in the position of another. Empathizing constitutes: 1) awareness of the emotional and psychological state of another person, 2) understanding of that state of being, 3) personal affinity or bond with the other’s circumstances, and 3) being able to respond in a way that moves the other party.
Call centers are often the target of empathy issues. Because call center work basically revolves around consumers, not having enough empathy can significantly affect customer-agent relationships, increasing the number of dissatisfied customers and jeopardizing your company’s reputation to the rest of the world. Issues concerning call center agents often point out to the lack or absence of empathy. Either they fail to exhibit such or are not consistent with it. Based on the latest UK survey conducted by a firm called Aspect Software, who randomly asked customers how satisfied they were with call centers agents’ empathy skills, there was a 7% drop in customer satisfaction. There were cases however, for customers with good experiences, that agent empathy skills were rated highly.
On the contrary, we also have to contend where these call center agents are located or from what culture they come from. An agent from call center in the Philippines could be rated much higher than an agent from Britain or the US. The same goes for call centers in India, China, Malaysia, and Poland. On the whole, most offshore call centers agents are found to have higher empathy than Western call centers agents, who, according to studies are increasingly getting stoic when it comes to dealing with customers on the phone.
According to reports based on research and observations, “empathy sets [Filipino call center agents] apart” in the call center race. Empathy, or malasakit in the Filipino tongue, is a deeply rooted trait in the culture of several Southeast Asian countries. The Philippines was able to bank on this trait big-time. This deeply rooted emphatic trait fueled the continuous growth of call centers in the Philippines as well as other consumer-driven outsourcing businesses.
What separates many a call center in Philippines is their ability to understand US culture and the behavior of American consumers. Historical ties with the US is one factor that fostered such an empathy with the Western way of life and years of bilateral agreements and economic interdependence reinforced this, giving way to a higher dimension of understanding. Indeed, along with other outsourcing services, the growth of call centers in the Philippines is accelerating fast. More and more western firms are drawn to them. Like a magnet, a call center in Philippines attracts firms that are searching for the best way to cut costs, start-up firms that require cost-efficient methods to enlarge their business, or firms that want to focus on their core competencies.
A call center in the Philippines normally trains its agents to be empathic through the use of polite words and a courteous tone. An agent cannot proceed without the other. If agents are to enhance their empathy skills, then might as well do it all the way by pleasing customers. With nothing more but kind words and a kind tone as weapons, Filipino call center agents can channel out both culturally learned and natural empathic traits and enable them to shine through. Managers should see to it that these traits are sustained and polished using the appropriate training modules. They will be surprised at how much doing so will have such a positive impact on call centers’ reputation.
showing that their is really a large demand of call centers around the globe. This is a very big demand of today businesses because of the great benefits it can give. Services from Call Center in Philippines helps a company save money and even increase its potential profit. With in this It is necessary in a call center to keep in touch to their customers and meet their needs in purchasing a product, having trouble with the product and respond to requests for services and information. Call Center in Philippines have integrated phone, fax and email to communicate to their clients harmoniously. The bottom line is Call Center in Philippines is providing better communication to their customers to make easy business.
