Empathy

President Obama mentioned this as a necessary quality when he announced his first Supreme Court nominee. Regardless of your political affiliation, it’s an interesting word to have entered the public discourse.

And it’s gotten me thinking about the necessity of empathy in qualitative research, from the point of view of the researcher, and from the perspective of the client. Yes, we want to gain key insights into how to better sell our widgets to customers and prospects. And, in the course of gathering these insights, we will encounter the full gamut of these customers. They might be savvy or bored, loving us or looking down their nose at us, wanting to be more like us or resenting the fact that they need us. Or all of the above!

How do we get past the natural defensiveness we all feel when our hard work is judged, our hip brand falls on not-as-cool-as-we-thought ears or our new product isn’t understood? Empathy.

We might think about the lyrics of this (dating me, I know) song, What It’s Like, by Everlast:
“God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in his shoes, cause then you really might know what it’s like to sing the blues.”
OK, so the topics in the song are admittedly heavier than most we encounter. Instead of drug abuse, homelessness or unwanted pregnancy, we’re more likely to encounter dislike for the color of an ad, misunderstanding of a gourmet new flavor or disdain for our company “selling out” by growing.

But the same concept applies. Like Mel Gibson in “What Women Want”, we’ve been given a rare opportunity to anonymously listen into someone’s thoughts. We can use what we learn to get ahead and to sell more to these people. And that’s, of course, the goal from a business standpoint. But we might also find ourselves feeling grateful for the humanity that’s being shared with us. And in the same way that Mel Gibson eventually becomes the ideal boyfriend to Helen Hunt because he can hear her real thoughts, we can present our message and tailor our product to best win over our customers and prospects.

In the course of becoming smarter businesses, qualitative research gives us the venue to open our minds and hearts to our customers. Because after all, they are usually talking with us not because of the stipend, but because they, like all of us, just want to be heard.

Jenni Cooper is the president of Periquin Strategy Inc., a brand strategy and qualitative marketing research consulting firm. She can be reached at jenni@periquin.com.