Role Playing for Empathy and Customer Insights

Role Playing in Empathy

Definition and Purpose

• Role Play: A technique for empathizing with the subject of interest.
  • Empathy: Feeling like the subject (emotional identification)
    • Helps in understanding the emotions and experiences of others, facilitating deeper connections.
  • Sympathy: Feeling for the subject (cerebral identification)
    • Useful for recognizing challenges faced by others without fully immersing oneself in their experience.
  • Apathy: Not feeling for the object (no identification)
    • This can be detrimental in understanding personal or social issues, as it distances oneself from the subject's reality.

Applications of Role Play

• Role play can be executed in various contexts, including:
  • Products: Example: "If you are the pen, how do you feel?"
    • Such exercises can help in product design by understanding user experiences from the product's perspective.
  • People: Example: "If you are a user of a pen, how do you feel?"
    • This encourages stakeholders to take on the role of actual users, which can influence service or product improvement.

Requirements for Effective Role Play

• Participants should:
  • Situate the subject in its context: For example, knowing details like name, age, education, family background.
    • This contextual knowledge enriches the role play and brings realism to the scenario.
  • Describe the regular life and activities of the subject: Understand what happens daily in their life.
    • This helps grasp the daily struggles or joys that shape their behavior and needs.
  • Narrate aspirations & achievements: Recognize what the subject wishes to accomplish in life.
    • Encourages empathy towards their goals and dreams, making one aware of their motivations.
  • Use pain points and failures: Acknowledge what couldn’t be achieved and the reasons why.
    • Understanding setbacks provides insights into resilience and the emotional impact of failure.
  • Imagine it as one's own life: Contemplate how it would feel to live the subject’s experiences.
    • This deepens the level of empathy and connection with the subject’s plight.

Conclusion

• The next two slides present role play excerpts from students of CPDM, IISc, emphasizing the richness of empathy through practical applications:
  • Each role play scenario is designed to foster empathy by encouraging participants to engage deeply with the subject matter, whether it's a person or a product.

Extended readings:

Customer Journey Mapping: Insights Diagram

Overview

The image presents a framework for understanding customer behavior by analyzing different perspectives—Seeing, Hearing, Saying, and Thinking & Feeling. This framework can help businesses align their marketing strategies with customer experiences.

Key Sections

1. Seeing

• Environment: Refers to the physical or digital spaces where customers interact with a brand. Consider optimizing these environments for better customer experiences.
• Friends: The influence of social circles on customer decisions. Companies can enhance word-of-mouth marketing by leveraging referral programs.
• What the Market Offers: Awareness of competitor offerings. Staying informed about competitors can help tailor products and services to meet gaps in the market.

2. Hearing

• What Friends Say: Testimonials and recommendations from peers sway customer decisions. Create platforms for users to share experiences.
• What Boss Says: Employee recommendations can significantly influence customer perceptions. Businesses should focus on internal culture.
• What Influencers Say: The impact of social media influencers on customer choices. Collaborating with trusted influencers can widen reach and credibility.

3. Saying

• Attitude in Public: Customers’ public behavior can reflect their loyalty. Foster a community that encourages positive public endorsements.
• Behavior Towards Others: How customers engage with other potential customers can create a brand community. Engaging with users can enhance loyalty.
• Measures of Success: Understand what success looks like to the customer (e.g., satisfaction, product quality). Collecting feedback can optimize the customer experience.

4. Thinking & Feeling

• What Really Counts: Identify key factors that are important to customers. Conducting surveys can guide product development.
• Major Preoccupations: Address concerns that may prevent customers from choosing a product. Transparent communication can alleviate these worries.
• Worries & Aspirations: Understanding customer desires and anxieties can help tailor messaging that resonates emotionally.

Customer Information Fields

• Customer's Name: __________________
• Customer's Job Title: __________________

This section allows for capturing specific customer insights, facilitating personalized marketing approaches.

Additional Notes

• Utilizing this framework can enhance empathy towards customers, guiding more effective business strategies.
• This analysis can be pivotal for user experience design, marketing campaigns, and product development.

Extended readings: