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Comment by avoutthere | Hacker News Reader

As the former head of a customer support department, I can tell you that the most important aspect of communication with a customer is empathy. Even more than expertise, if you can demonstrate that you care about their problem and will get to the bottom of it, the encounter will most likely result in customer retention.

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Similarly, has anyone else noticed the overly fake "I want to help you." Interactions with more companies lately? I mean it couldn't be more scripted if someone tried. I applaud the effort, but actual caring/empathy is meaningful, the fake, scripted attempts at it that I've been experiencing lately feel much more condescending than anything else.

Yep. Comcast is a big fan of this method, which is really infuriating and condescending because they pretend to understand my frustration while they fail to fix my problem and pass me off to someone else.

Really? Because nothing grinds my gears more than fake sympathy/empathy coupled with an inability/unwillingness to understand my problem and an urgency to get me off the phone. Which is pretty much how customer support works.

What I want from customer support is for someone to take the time to understand why I am calling. Not to pat me on the head and tell me things will be alright while urgently trying to get rid of me.

But that is exactly what the GP said. You want somebody to care about you and your problem and to make an effort to solve it.

He said "the most important aspect of communication with a customer is empathy".

I disagree. When I call support I'm not looking to commiserate or share my misfortune. I'm looking for acknowledgement of and resolution to a problem.

This view that empathy is what's important is the reason why hold messages say "your call is important to us" and why all customer support feigns empathy to my emotional plight when I call them about anything.

Empathy, in this context, means to me that I care about the problem of the person I am supposed to help, which increases my motivation to actually help them.

Saying I care and actually caring are not the same. When I call a hotline with a problem and am stuck in a loop telling me how important my call is to them, it tells me they don't care at all.

At least that how I understand the comment, and since I also wear a helpdesk-monkey-hat at work, it is how I try to deal with our users.

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