Is empathy the new frontier in business?

Posted: July 19th, 2010 | Author: hein | Filed under: Amsterdam, brand development, Empathy, Hash-Tag Model, innovation, strategy, Touchpoint | Tags: Amsterdam, brand development, empathie monitor 2010, Empathy, Fronteer, innovation, onderzoek, research, touchpoints | No Comments »

On July 9^th we held a workshop on business empathy with 4 major Dutch companies, all leaders in their category: banking, supermarkets, rice and cable companies.

This workshop was part of the Dutch Empathy Monitor 2010, conducted by Ruigrok | Netpanel in cooperation with Fronteer Strategy. One of the interesting outcomes: there is a positive correlation between empathy and attractiveness.

But how can these four large brands be empathic while serving literally all Dutch consumers between the four of them? How can they understand all these 17 million consumers? The truth is, they can’t. But they can at least start trying.

These are some of the brand challenges that came up during the workshop:

- How can a commodity- or technical brand be empathic?
- Is empathy the reason why people still write us real letters?
- Should we deal with all the millions of expanding on-line touchpoints our brand has?

The answer is three times: Yes.

We believe that empathy is one of the new frontiers in business.

A definition of ‘empathy’: “The identification and imagination of another’s situation, feelings, motives.”
The difficulty in truly being empathic is You. Trying to grasp another persons situation and behavior is very hard to do. Why? Because You always see it from Your perspective: “If I were him/her, I would do this or that.” This simple fact makes empathy a tough nut to crack. But there is hope: science tells us, we are all are hard-wired for empathy and can develop our empathic skills.

But let us throw in something else first: Touchpoints. What is it and what does it have to do with empathy? Touchpoints are all moments where consumers and brands find each other. From commercials to packaging, from store-visits to personal recommendations, from call-centers to user-generated content; these are all brand/consumer touchpoints. Brands are being discussed, rated, idolized or simply taken for granted. All these touchpoints are relevant for brands. All touchpoints are opportunities for brands to transfer what it stands for.

So wouldn’t it be great to manage all your brands activities from one holistic empathic approach? Yes, but then there is one minor problem: It is impossible to foresee, control or even respond to all touchpoints. A brand has hardly influence on the commencement of all these touchpoints. A lot is said and done out of scope of marketers, let alone now we observe the number of on-line touchpoints rapidly expanding.

So what do we do then? We must design a ‘touchpoint strategy’. Simply said: a ‘touchpoint strategy’ describes at which type of touchpoint a brand takes what action. In order to craft this strategy, several steps have to be taken, which we will discuss here.

As a starting point we have developed a model Fronteer Strategy that is called the ‘#-Model’ (The Hash-tag Model). When crossing two axes – buying phase and initiator type – 9  touchpoint-areas emerge. They are all relevant to any brand or category.

The model knows three buying phases:

- Pre-purchase
- Purchase
- Post-purchase

The model has three initiator types:

- Brand Initiated
- Consumer Initiated
- Jointly Initiated

Now the framework is built we work our way through filling the model in three phases.

First of all: Diagnostic Phase
In this step an inventory is made of all touchpoints.

Sample key questions are:
- What are the touchpoints the brand has initiated?
(Advertising, product performance, helpdesk, retail environment, etc.)
- What are the touchpoints consumers have initiated?
(Peer-to-peer reviews, blogs, transporting stuff home, sharing, etc.)
- What are the touchpoints that are jointly initiated?
(Design contests, fan-days, recommendations based on searches, etc.)
- What touchpoints are key for the industry?
- What touchpoints are key for the brand?
- What touchpoints have maximum and lasting impact?
- At what touchpoints the brand is performing well/not so well?
- What other brands in and outside the category have shown the capability to design valuable touchpoints?

Secondly: Development Phase
In this step new ideas are developed for key touchpoint areas.

Sample key questions are:
- Who are my consumers at these touchpoints?
- What are their feelings, motives and desires? (Empathy)
- What can a brand do to with this new understanding?
- What new empathic Brand Action can we design? (Brand Initiated)
- What new empathic Brand Reaction can we design? (On a Consumer Initiated touchpoint)
- What new empathic Brand Interactions can we design? (On a Jointly Initiated touchpoint)
- And… what touchpoints don’t we touch?

Thirdly: Doing It – Phase

In this step ideas are translated into refined product/service/communication concepts.
Sample key questions are:
- How do the newly designed touchpoints relate to the current business?
- Do the touchpoints have a new business model?
- How will the touchpoints evolve over time?
- Who will deliver these touchpoints in the organization?
- How can we constantly innovate on these touchpoints?

Coming back to the Empathy Workshop.

Together, we generated through answering a simple set of questions a wealth of ideas for different touchpoint areas in a few hours.
Combining empathy in strategic thinking is only just starting, and we are only testing the waters, but here are our conclusions so far:

- Empathy as a single starting point is very powerful for idea generation (“What would make your brand more empathic?”)
- Brand Activities with a clear perspective in mind are much stronger than multi-perspective ones
- Being emphatic to other consumer profiles (income, gender, interests, etc.) then your own, is harder than we often think
- The further away you have to go from yourself the more difficult empathy gets
- Distinguishing 3 types of touchpoint initiators is spot-on and inspiring
- Thinking through 3 buying phases is very relevant
- Different categories and as well as different brands have different touchpoint ‘hot-zones’ where they have to excel

For now, a big ‘thank you’ to the workshop participants.

Feel free to contact us for a touchpoint strategy when you want to know in which moments you should really invest as a brand.

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