Empathy
Researchers Must Blend Technology With Empathy For Better Insights
By Enock Wandera
In today’ s world where consumer behavior keeps shifting, researchers need to not only stay at the forefront of how they harness the power of data and technology but also blend empathy in their work for insights to offer appropriate strategic direction.
Researchers with a strong sense of empathy can look underneath into the real-life experience and deeper motivations and emotions of people. This will help them to know the things people care about, the things that upset them, the things that touch them, the things that make them take notice, and why?
Jill Burnett, an acclaimed global researcher couldn’ t have put it much better when he quipped that empathy is the greatest skill for a human insights’ researcher. We all see and process the world through our own experiences, making research to be clinical, regimented and cold sometimes. According to him, good quality research must embody empathy which requires that we set aside our personal lenses and observe, notice and make connections through other people’ s lenses.
It is only when we blend technology with empathy in research that we can discover people we are studying for who they are and who they are becoming. Empathy in research should therefore not just be the purely emotional kind but that which includes purposeful action and delivery to be able to reveal what drives other human beings, what frustrates them, and how best to delight them by providing for their developing needs.
As a powerful tool for growing businesses, brands and organizations, empathy requires a complete circuit- from your head( the business question) to your heart( the people question), to your gut( intuitive understanding), and to your hands and feet( motivated action). In fact, empathy is anything but a passive emotional response to another’ s circumstance.
Empathy is a powerful instrument for
As a powerful tool for growing businesses, brands and organizations, empathy requires a complete circuit- from your head( the business question) to your heart( the people question), to your gut( intuitive understanding), and to your hands and feet( motivated action). supporting each other and it is physically rooted in who we are. In a research training environment for instance, empathy can make participants feel good and that it was a productive use of their time, and that is why empathetic research is synonymous with success.
Several studies indicate a desire from consumers for businesses to demonstrate empathetic qualities and show an understanding of customers as people. This is especially the case among Millennials and Gen Z who say they are more likely to purchase something from a company that demonstrates a broader sense of empathy.
An Ipsos poll conducted in America in May 2020 found that people saw it more important for businesses to demonstrate empathetic qualities and show an understanding of customers as people, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The same study revealed nine in ten people continue to think that brands need to show empathy with actions and not just words, and 86 % believe that showing empathy is critical to creating greater loyalty.
The top five ways consumers say brands can be empathetic are: treating people with respect( 52 %), treating people like human beings( 50 %), listening to people( 43 %), caring about people( 41 %), and acknowledging when the brand is wrong( 37 %).
According to the Greater Good Science Center, a research institute that studies the
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