The New Found Priority In This New Normal — An Opportunity for all.
Imagine you’ve boarded a time-machine and whoosh! you’re in 2019. The first thing you see is your neighbor, 60 years old aunty wanting to sell home-cooked food who neither can afford a restaurant nor does she understand the type of food people like around her in that hustle-bustle. Now, fast forward with to April 2020 with COVID-19 all around you, Ding dong! She definitely can now. Why? (Hint: easy peasy to get customers from her colony and understand their needs)
“Our core business is connected with the customers’ needs and we will not be able to satisfy them if we don’t have a deep sense of empathy” — Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
Well, you might wonder what’s new? Empathy seems like a normal element of a business. What changed with this on-going pandemic?
Empathy. I believe it’s a two-way process, businesses/companies understanding their customers and customers understanding the company/business. Here, this 60-year lady wouldn’t have been able to match herself with the fast-food restaurants but now with the lockdown, she has an edge, and people would definitely love to buy off food from her. It’s also the other way round, people also understand what shoes she’s in to be able to deliver the delicious food to their houses.
I’ve often seen that entrepreneurs focus on ideation, prototyping, revenue model, and whatnot. But right when you would ask them a question as minute as, does your website send a thank you email for subscribing to your newsletter? Their answer most probably will be, “Yes, we can do that, it’s not important right now, let’s focus on getting leads.”
This 60-year-old lady will surpass fast-food restaurants right now because — she understands people better now that everyone’s home, she can do her own surveys, people value her food even more now seeing the lockdown and she’s going to go an extra inch that companies don’t. Empathy, that’ll make her thrive!
Let’s dust it off even more. Do you know what gives cobblers their bread? Empathy. Had they not treated their customers with that big smile, greetings, no one would have gone up to them on their way to the office for a quick polish.
Do you know that during this pandemic in India, two big brands in India partnered just so they could serve their customers well, keeping their profits at the back seat? Uber and BigBasket.com!
“When it isn’t feasible with clients getting face-to-face with users in context, you can create analogous experiences to foster empathy.” (Farhoomand, et al.)
This is exactly what Uber and Bigbasket.com achieved with their recent partnership. They’ve fostered empathy and adopted it during times when they can’t be face-to-face with their end customers.
In this wonderful movie, Uber decided to help big-basket complete their last-mile deliveries to ensure that customers had essential supplies stocked up in their houses amidst lockdown.
The move will help both Flipkart and BigBasket that have more than half a million inventories stuck at their warehouses because of the shortage of delivery workers.“This partnership is to help move essential supplies from our sellers/vendors to customers in the shortest possible span of time,” said Rajneesh Kumar, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Flipkart, in a statement. (Singh 2020)
It’s the same Uber that hiked prices during traffic jams and BigBasket that sold costly groceries. Yes, times change and companies are forced to take steps, not for their company but people.
Did empathy exist before this pandemic? It did, but only marginally, the question is where? Let’s dive deeper into a revolutionizing model that has taught millions of entrepreneurs the meaning of empathy.
The Dabbawalas, who’ve replicated the model that most social entrepreneurs dreamt of — a model that was built of trust, empathy, and culture. Any person on this earth working in an office 9–5 would definitely crave an-time, home-cooked food tiffin delivery. Well, that’s exactly what Dabbawalas promised and have been continuing to do so.
They’ve made a crisp point towards their customers, be it for punctuality or empathy. They’ve also made sure that they don’t lose their cultural touch amidst the business and they’ve been right on track. The Dabbawalas teach us all an essential lesson of why we need to keep our customers on a pedestal and profits at a back seat.
When you look at this company (The Dabbawalas), certainly there’s a lot more that everyone can learn from, but one most important aspect and one that cannot be ignored no matter which business your startup is — the customer is king! In fact, dabbawalas go a step further. They regard their customer as their Lord Vitthala. Now that’s something that says a lot about what they stand for, doesn’t it?
How do entrepreneurs inculcate these? I believe incubators can help nurture early-stage ventures with the right knowledge and the right time when it comes to empathy.”Effective mentoring relationship relies on aspects such as experience and empathy, intensity and interest, transparency, and development of both individual and society. A structured thinking process is essential to encourage the engagement of contrarian views.” (Ganapathy)
Have a look at this;
This beautiful documentary highlights the qualities a dabbawala carries which could teach each and every entrepreneur the necessary skills like grit, consistency, punctuality, empathy, etc.
What are the parallels between Dabbawalas & Start-ups that align with our new normal — Empathy?
- Making your customers know that you understand them — this is an essential point because we often focus on the product, how to make it the best, and often forget customers in the cycle. They are the ones who’re experiencing, they’re the ones who we have to understand, not the product.
- Setting your goals right by your customers — the Dabbawalas have goals that align not by their needs but customers’. It’s crucial that post this pandemic, companies realize that it’s only a matter of time that people will realize their selfish goals if they don’t go right by them which can be a huge setback.
- Make sure they’re an integral part of your iterations aka feedback mechanism — travel back to point no.1, you get it!
- Follow simple customer relationship strategy— give them what they want! In the documentary, it was little things like him not asking for his salary ever was something that she was delighted with and also his punctuality. He offered what he could as a dabbawala and he never lost her as a customer.
- Make your customers feel that they aren’t just your customers but your family.
But wait, why are we saying that empathy is the new normal? Where was it exactly absent? Let’s find out!
Following are some real-life stories of companies that lacked “E M P A T H Y” that cost them millions before this pandemic happened:
- Lacking empathy doesn’t just hurt company culture, and it’s definitely about more than “just feelings.” Ask technology and business writer Shea Drake, who witnessed such an extreme lack of empathy from a former company’s vice president that the organization lost just under $1 million. (Huhman 2017)
- Derrick Mains, the founder of AMP Business Systems, a management operating system, considered himself an effective manager because of his unempathetic nature. However, his lack of empathy caused him to almost lose one of his best employees during a performance misunderstanding. (Huhman 2017)
- Getting wrapped up in your busy schedule and pretending to be empathetic doesn’t actually count as empathy at all. Chris Powell, CEO of Talmetrix, employee feedback, and insights company, was hit with this realization when he was the head of HR at Scripps. “I was focused on getting to the root of the problem and was discussing it with a colleague when he said back to me, ‘Chris, we only have to appear to care.’ At that point in time, I realized I hired the wrong person,” Powell said. (Huhman 2017)
I believe this pandemic achieves more than making things new normal. For you, it might be, work from home, giving hyperlocal start-ups the crown they needed, family time, and whatnot.
I see it a little differently, how this pandemic has made us all understand the meaning of empathy. It’s not just about materialistic things but emotion. Every other NGO is out helping people, big brands are out helping people, governments are focused on helping people. What do you see around you in all corners? Empathy. And I don’t see it vanishing as soon as things get back to normal!
Here’s an amazing Tedx talk on “Why Empathy for businesses/companies/start-ups?” by Matthew who’s the CEO of Widen, a marketing technology company founded in 1948.
He dives deeper into why empathy is not just for NGOs but companies. To top it off, I actually asked what my followers on LinkedIn think about empathy as the new normal post-COVID-19 and turns out, yes this might be the way forward!
One of the comments said, “Empathy in business gives me hope for humanity. It is in these testing times you realize the importance of staying united for the betterment of everyone around us. Eventually, the gist of any business is to solve the problems that they focus on. But during the testing times, it is about coming together to fight against the catastrophe in even the smallest way possible. So, yes, empathy is a virtue that definitely should be a core principle.”
In the end, I want to request you, please carry forward the torch of this empathetic nature not just as a volunteer but as an employee, as a husband/wife, as an entrepreneur. You’re the reason this will become the new normal post-COVID-19. My words just share my thoughts that yes, this is and might be the new normal but you are the reason it can come true.
Making empathy the core of a business is not an easy task but you and I can make this the new normal to make the world a better place for businesses and their customers. Let’s all be dabbawalas of empathy.
References:
Farhoomand, Ali, et al. “Empathy on the Edge: Scaling and Sustaining a Human-Centred Approach to Innovation ^ ROT254.” Empathy on Edge — HBR Store, store.hbr.org/product/empathy-on-the-edge-scaling-and-sustaining-a-human-centred-approach-to-innovation/ROT254.
Huhman, Heather R. “Non-Empathetic Employers Are Losing Their Best Employees. Here’s Why.” Inc.com, Inc., 21 Sept. 2017, www.inc.com/heather-r-huhman/a-lack-of-empathy-cost-this-company-almost-1-million-whats-it-costing-you.html.
Ganapathy, Venkatesh. “GRIN — Mumbai Dabbawalas. Social Entrepreneurs Who Make India Proud.” Mumbai Dabbawalas. Social Entrepreneurs Who Make India Proud, www.grin.com/document/370831.
Singh, Manish. “Uber Partners with Flipkart and BigBasket in India to Deliver Essential Items.” TechCrunch, TechCrunch, 6 Apr. 2020, techcrunch.com/2020/04/06/uber-partners-with-flipkart-and-bigbasket-in-india-to-deliver-essential-items/.
