How to show empathy in your coaching product?
Hooray! You’ve made it to part 2 of this journey. Wait, what? You didn’t read the first part? Well, this article will still taste like a nice piece of chocolate cake if you didn’t but I still recommend reading part 1. Especially because fostering empathy in your team is paramount if you want to show empathy in your product.
So what makes a great coaching product? UX? UI? In my opinion, all these elements are irrelevant or dysfunctional if you don’t show that you care about your users. Showing that you care about their situation is key to unlock their attention and their will to follow your coaching advice. In this post, I will try to show you several tricks and product gimmicks that amplify and testify your empathy to your users.
“Why did my best friend ignore the recommendation I made her a couple of weeks ago about that awesome Netflix show? The show has everything: plot twists, great characters, dragons…” Do you ever find yourself in such a position, clenching your jaw because the world won’t listen to your great piece of advice? Well, they probably aren’t listening because you’re not listening either. You should know by now that your best friend is scared to death of lizards.
More seriously, coaching is about listening to people’s problems, showing empathy and THEN suggesting solutions. For me, showing empathy in your product is not about putting heart emojis all over it. It’s about making two things: 1) taking the “first step” towards your user by making it easy for them to give details that could be helpful for you 2) showing that the data you collected is not being used to feed a greedy database, but to reuse it for them.
Starting easy
You will never feel confident and ready to open up if your first meeting with your coach is arranged in a creepy wood cabin in the middle of the night. For the first meeting, you need to find a neutral place to casually chat and listen to your users. It’s the same with your coaching product. And a great way to do that is by using one of the most common interfaces on the internet: the chat.
Almost every Internet user knows how to use it (thank you Messenger, Whatsapp…). Using this interface allows you to start a conversation with your user without asking them to take the “first step”. This little design detail seems far from the topic, but it’s key if you want your user to feel confident and ready to open up.
Another nice thing is that chat makes huge pieces of text (filled with important information) more readable and less “Alright, this onboarding will take you the same amount of time than a flight New York — Tokyo (about 15 hours FYI)”.
My name is not Julie
Ever feel that tickling sensation when someone misspelled your name or even worse call you Julie instead of Sarah during a whole conversation? Well, some products behave like that boring guy from accounting who can’t be bothered to remember your name.
Try to make your product as personalized as possible, even during your onboarding phase. Your user often provides important data about themselves; use it wisely and show that you’re listening to them. That’s essential for helping them understand that you’re here to help. Simple tips:
- Use their first name… if they’re OK with that. When a face-to-face conversation is going well, people often wonder if they can switch to first names. Well, just do the same with your users. You can use their first name but do not forget to ask them.
- Show that you’re listening. When a user gives you some personal data, you have to give them something in return. For example, if Bill tells you his expected salary for his next job, use this information to confirm whether his expectations are good or not (see the image below).
- Feminize your content: if your user declares their gender, it’s polite to show that you paid attention. English has fewer problems with this issue but Latin languages such as French can cause a few awkward problems with gender (another fun part of learning French…).
Being honest
If your users’ goal is hard to achieve, you should tell them. Being honest when coaching someone is the first step for a trust-based relationship.
A great way to do this without being too depressing is to check in with any difficulties your user may be having.
Your user will often be reassured or even impressed by the fact that your product knows the multiple difficulties they may be facing. Sometimes, it encourages your user to introspect, face up to their difficulties or even better: discover them!
Go for the long run
Allowing for multiple coaching time is great. As information is always hard to process, especially when it is about changing your behaviour, playing the long game when you’re coaching someone is a good strategy. It’s the same as a gym coach: it’s great to have them for a whole hour session. It’s even more awesome to also be able to follow them on Instagram and send them questions about that tricky back exercise by DM/email. With your product, you can also deliver great advice in multiple parts, using emails, messages or notifications for example.
And don’t forget the previous piece of advice: if the users give you data, show them you’re using it to coach them! If you decide to follow up with your user by email, personalize it by addressing their issues directly. There are a lot of ways to do that: call them by their first names, address specifically the issues they told you about, give them insider tips/data on what they are interested about… Your emailing campaign should stick to the overall philosophy you apply to your product, not a marketing gadget.
If you have any other tips or tools to share to show empathy in your product, share them in the comments!
If you are interested in what our non-profit is doing to tackle social issues at scale with algorithms, you can visit our website or even send me a DM on Linkedin.
Thanks for reading.
