How Do We Think About Customer Service And Empathy?

A tale of Burger Socks + Empathy

How do we think about customer service and empathy? A recent customer service/support experience left me wondering if we could use some work in truly understanding what our customers are going through and, actually, now as I type, is making me think about how I tend to respond to client questions and concerns.

Monday, 11:00 AM

I receive an email about “McDelivery Day”, a promotional event from McDonald’s and UberEats with some very simple, but exciting news. Order $5 worth of food via UberEats and toss a retro McDonald’s swag item into your cart for free while supplies last. As I page through the options in the initial promotional announcement, I come across what I immediately consider to be the “Big Kahuna”: Big Mac socks. All-white, with a tasteful ring of Big Macs (if that is such a thing) falling around the bottom of the calf. With the promotion running “when lunch begins for participating restaurants, while supplies last”, I set a reminder on my phone for 10:20 AM Thursday to order McDonald’s and get my socks.

Thursday, 10:25 AM.

I’m at the office, sitting in one of our meeting spaces combing the UberEats app to make sure I know what I want to order when the times comes. In my mind, there will be thousands of people clamoring for their shot at these items and I don’t want to have my plan foiled by menu indecision. I decide on my food and play the waiting game for the final five minutes. As the clock turns 10:32, I’ve already added my food to the cart, selected to have a promotional item added to my order, and submitted my request for this swaggy deliciousness to be brought to our door. Though I have hit a snag in not being able to select the exact promotional item swag I want, I’m hopeful that these Big Mac socks are in my future.

Thursday 11:36 AM.

After an hour of intermittently checking the tracking portion of the app, enduring a handful of delays, and giving 110% mental effort to pay attention to work despite the growing anticipation, my order arrives…

…with no Big Mac socks.

Immediately I have a questions with no clear answers. Who should have put the socks in my order? McDonald’s? My UberEats driver? Does the driver know there should have been another item on there? I check the receipt. Clear as day: “McDelivery Collection Item”.

I eat my food (say what you want about McDonald’s, but it always hits the spot) while I determine what to do next. Eventually I decide that I might as well send a support message via the app. They have to have socks somewhere they can send to me, right?

Friday 1:33 AM

It takes a day, but I finally hear back:

At first, I want to just accept it and move on. I’ve got another (very close to free) UberEats meal coming, so I should just be happy. But I’m not happy. I’m unsettled. After a couple of minutes, I realize why.

This experience was never about the money. Sure, I did have to spend around $7 for the lunch that gave me access to the potential to score the socks of my dreams, but I didn’t really care about that. That was a small price to pay for the experience I actually wanted: getting my hands on something as unique and interesting (at least to me) as Big Mac socks. After all, you can’t buy these!

So, I decide to go back in with a little bit more about my desire to actually get the socks:

Almost immediately I receive this:

“No,” I think, “I’m not appeased. I don’t want the money. I want the socks.”

Ignited with a bit more gusto to explain exactly what I was thinking and feeling, I try to give some more context:

Friday 1:45 PM

A carbon copy of the previous message arrives, albeit from a different support agent:

I’m stumped. And this, this is where my questions and thoughts about customer service and empathy begin.

In what situations do we, do I, find myself wanting to, for lack of a better analogy, throw money (figuratively or literally) at a customer question, complaint, or piece of feedback, instead of truly entering in?

Now, to be clear, it would be foolish to paint with such a broad brush as to insinuate that this is a common occurrence with UberEats or even that this is their typical customer service philosophy. However, it seems relevant to consider the questions and thoughts I have surrounding this particular instance of customer service and support.

In my case, I was offered money as a way to appease my voiced concerns, with the hope that I would take the $5, order again, and have a different experience. The problem with this is that, even on my first order, I wasn’t looking for something as transactional as that. I was looking for a unique, one-of-a kind (or at least 100-of-a-kind) moment. It wasn’t about the exchange of money for food. It was about what that exchange of money/food was getting me experientially: something that I can’t get everyday with any old $5. In fact, that’s exactly how it was pitched in the email, too. “This is something special happening for a limited time, so make sure you get in on it.” And that’s what can’t be paid back with a $5 food credit.

“So,” I have to ask myself, after all of this rambling and thinking, “Do I do this in my own work?”

Are there problems and concerns that clients that I work with are voicing that I’m throwing figurative money at? Because, as much as this can be seen in actual cash transactions, it’s not restricted to only situations where money is exchanged.

Maybe it’s a pat, canned answer to a deeper question.

Maybe it’s a defensive posture rather than hearing someone out.

Perhaps it’s focusing so hard on solving the literal problem without thinking about why the client wants it solved.

It could be taking satisfaction with “checking the box” and getting the job done without having ever considered the empathic response someone was looking for.

And the tricky thing about these responses is that they aren’t often actually malicious. In fact, I’d argue that they are pretty natural to the “solve this problem” mentality. Whether in the form of a question, concern, or bad experience, a client or customer delivers to us a problem that needs solving. So, we put on our thinking caps and set out to find that solution. And, unfortunately, as I think I discovered in my case, that solution is sometimes found at the mercy of our “standard operating procedure”. We match the feedback up with our flow chart of “if this, then this” and deploy the presecribed solution. Problem solved!

Except we all know from situations of our own that our problems and concerns are rarely that functional and straightforward. They’re often accompanied by a wide range of expectations, emotions, and unexpressed desires or needs. It’s this understanding that ought to transcend and disrupt our flow charts and enable us to meet this wide range of emotions and needs with a thoughtful and empathic problem-solving approach.

Despite these musings, I have, at this moment, no long manifesto of what “needs to happen in the business place” (or any other environment, for that matter) in this regard.

At this moment, I just have an experience that tells me that there is significant need to actually pause, and think and enter in when we, when I, receive feedback, questions, and concerns. After all, there are many more important situations in need of empathic consideration than my desire for retro burger-embroidered promotional merchandise.

I doubt that I’ll ever get the socks. And I suppose that’s okay. I won’t hold a grudge against UberEats and I suspect I’ll order food again. That $5 won’t spend itself. But, I also know that I’m going to do everything in my power to commit to giving the metaphorical Big Mac socks to everyone who asks me for them from now on.

Though, without my own pair, I definitely won’t look as cool doing it.