Empathy, Trust, Diffusing Conflict and Handling Complaints

Empathy, trust, diffusing conflict and handling complaints

Empathy and trust are a platform for effective understanding, communication and relationships. Empathy and trust are essential to develop solutions, win and retain business, and avoiding or diffusing conflict. Empathy and trust are essential for handling complaints and retaining patients. These days we need to be more effective communicators to be successful in business - and in life. The 'steps of the sale', persuasion, closing techniques, features and benefits do not build rapport or relationships - empathy, trust, understanding and sympathetic communications do. One-sided persuasion is not sustainable and is often insulting, especially when handling complaints. Trust and empathy are far more important in achieving and sustaining successful personal and business relationships.

A certain legacy of the days of the hard-sell is that many consumers and business people are more reluctant to expose themselves to situations where they may be asked to make a decision. This places extra pressure on the process of arriving at a deal, and very special skills are now needed to manage the situations in which business is done.

Whether for report of findings, patient retention or handling complaints, these are the underpinning principles:

Establish trust and rapport - Before beginning any business or selling activity, and particularly handling complaints, we must establish a rapport with the other person. This is essential to allow a sensible 'adult' discussion. It is not possible to sell or handle complaints while in any other mode. When people complain they are often emotional in a childish or patronising way, which does not provide a platform for constructive discussion.

Understand how the other person feels and what they want - We cannot persuade people to do what we want. Instead we must understand what the other person wants and help them to achieve it, which often includes helping them to see the way to do it. We must work with people to enable them to see what they want and then to achieve it. Understanding what people want is complicated by the fact that people often mask their real feelings and issues. Establishing trust is the only way to lift away the mask.

How do we establish trust? The way that we communicate is the key. Communicating well builds rapport, and allows us to move to the next stage when we can gather information. But what is the secret of effective communication?

What is the most powerful method of building rapport? Speaking or listening?

Listening is by far the most important. Listening for many people is simply the gap between speaking, preparing to speak again.

And yet people love to be listened to. Listening is a 'giving' thing, therefore it builds trust. The need to be listened to, understood and accepted is a fundamental human desire. Abraham Maslow identified this a long time ago. When we are understood we feel affirmed and validated.

In the words of Dr Steven Covey, ‘Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.’

When we show we understand someone we make an investment in the other person and this builds trust. We understand when we listen properly.

Covey says there are six different levels of listening:

· peripheral (inattentive, as if background noise)

· ignoring (deliberately dismissive)

· pretending (pretending to be interested)

· selective (only interested in what we choose)

· attentive (listening to every word without thinking about the underlying feelings and meaning)

· empathic (understanding the feeling and meaning - understanding how the other person really feels and why)

We need to try very hard to get beyond the attentive level, because this requires us to project ourselves into the other person’s situation (empathic listening is sometimes called projective listening).

Empathic listening is about seeing how the other person sees and feeling like they feel. We must see things from their frame of reference, from where they see the subject matter in their own particular way. Empathise listening requires us to use intuitive skills from the right side of the brain, whereas most of us have been developing finely tuned left-side brain skills for logic and reasoning in business. (People who are right-side brain dominant usually find empathic listening comes easier, and may even be a natural habit, but anyone can develop the skills required.)

Empathic listening shows in our responses to the speaker. We can all tell instinctively how truly interested and empathic the other person is when they listen to us.

Attentive listening and lower levels of listening are 'taking' (Covey refers to this as 'making emotional withdrawals, rather than deposits'). To build trust we must give, not take. If we find ourselves responding with any of the following we are not listening with empathy, and therefore will not be building trust (these are all 'taking', not 'giving'):

· evaluation

· probing

· interpretation

· advice

Ironically isn’t ‘probing’ through questioning supposed to be one of the first ‘steps of the sale’? Well it won’t work until the other person trusts us and feels we have understood them. Steven Covey calls these responses that lack true empathy ‘autobiographical’, because we are really just subjecting the other person to our own views, experiences and motives. The other person isn’t interested. They want deposits not withdrawals.

Empathic listening is about reflecting feeling, and content, but mostly feeling.

Transactional Analysis principles are integral to the approach.

If someone is upset, or angry, or emotional in any way we must avoid responding with our own autobiographical opinions or intentions. They are not relevant to that person.

We need to reflect and rephrase what the other person is saying so that they know that we understand how they feel, and their point of view. The exchanges may go on for several minutes, and with each one we gradually build more trust and allow the other person to expose more of their true feelings to us.

This process is particularly effective for overcoming emotional objections. Our natural response to hearing someone say that they're too busy is to persuade them that our need is greater than theirs, and to ride roughshod over their feelings; we all do it. But it's the last thing that the other person needs. They want to be listened to, to be understood, or to let off steam. The more we can absorb and empathise with the other person's position, then the more we begin to build a platform for trust.

Handling complaints and patient retention

The principle of ownership - that if you receive a complaint or query you continue to own it until it is resolved - even if you escalate it or delegate it - which means that you must always follow-up and check on progress and eventually resolution and satisfaction.

The measurement and monitoring of complaints, from receipt to resolution - the organisation must have suitable systems and commitment to do this, especially from the very top.

The difference between understanding and agreement - everyone in the organisation must have the training, encouragement and ability, to understand and to convey that they understand - to see the reality of the other person's position and feelings - whether they are right or wrong - and must have the training and authority to agree where appropriate, which implies some form of compensatory action by the organisation in favour of the aggrieved.

Commitment to seek complaints and feedback - the organisation must welcome complaints and must encourage staff to ask for them - complaints enable quality improvement and ultimately improve relations with patients (every patient is more loyal after the complaint is resolved satisfactorily than they were before the complaint arose).

The over-compensation principle - always look after complaining patients extremely well - generally regardless of whether they are right or wrong - organisations typically begrudge compensating complaining patients - this is completely illogical, because complaints are relatively rare and the real cost of compensation is relatively inexpensive, and yet the benefits from patient satisfaction, increased loyalty and positive word-of-mouth are enormous by comparison.

Trust and rapport training to improve patient service

The secret to patient retention is the relationship in the first few seconds of the complaint being made. Patients are far more likely to rethink and stay if they 'like' the person on the other end of the phone or in the treatment room. Certainly a patient will not begin to reconsider if they 'dislike' the other person - instead they become empowered to accelerate and reinforce withdrawal from the moment they feel the slightest bit challenged or opposed.

Role-play sympathetic phrases and tone for this scenario: you meet a friend in the street and learn from them that their house has burned down, or their family pet got run over - listen for the natural empathy and sympathy - there is no instinct here to persuade the friend to 'get a grip' or 'snap out of it' - the natural sympathetic response is the basis of building trust and empathy and rapport.

Trust is a powerful thing - and should go hand in hand with integrity - sustainable business (and personal careers) are built on genuinely helpful solutions and outcomes, which hopefully are available to you when a genuine need for compromise and simple humanity exists.

Trust and diffusing conflict

There is truly no greater opportunity to build trust than when the other person is subjecting you to a negative emotional outburst. Absorb it, show that you understand how they feel and you will create the foundation for co-operation. If you can embrace the principle of absorbing other people's emotions, even mild abuse, you will begin instinctively to empathise in a way that will benefit all of your relationships, whether in business or otherwise.

Steven Covey explains this technique in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The next time you find yourself on the receiving end of an emotional outburst, try dealing with it in the way Covey recommends, and see for yourself how a quickly you can create an atmosphere of trust and co-operation from a situation that threatened the complete opposite.

Use Covey's step-by-step guide, and remember that only 7% of meaning is carried in the words, the rest of the meaning is in the way that the words are said and the facial expressions, so look for signs of the feeling, and empathise with how the other person feels.

· First simply repeat what the other person says:

Other person: "I'm far too busy."

Your response: "I can see that you are very busy."

· Then interpret and reflect back what is being said:

"You've come at the very worst time, all this work to do, there's no way I've got time for you now."

"I can see this is not a good time, you've a lot on your plate."

· Then reflect back how the other person feels (look for the feelings, say angry):

"Nobody knows the pressure I'm under, and then they expect me to deal with you on top of it all."

"I can see that you are angry, and I can understand why."

· Then reflect back the other person's situation and how they feel about it:

"You're dead right I'm angry, wouldn't anyone be?"

"I can see that this is the last thing you need, and how this must be creating a lot of pressure for you, and that's why you're angry."

What you are doing is drawing the sting; giving the other person a vent for their feelings. This makes huge emotional investments in the other person. Who else would do it? Nobody. That sets you apart, and sooner or later the barrier will come down, and you have a basis for trust. The other person may ask then what you want, or even apologise; you just take it easy, go at their pace, absorbing when you need to and all the time empathising, seeing things from their point of view. The trust soon builds, because there is no greater demonstration of trustworthiness than absorbing and understanding another person's angst. Try it. It works.