What is the Empathy Map and what are its benefits?

The empathy map It is a format that is intended to describe the customer of a company in an ideal way through various analyzes that are directly related to people's feelings. These analyzes can be done through questions, which facilitate understanding to get to know the client and in the same way relate to him.

This map is based directly on empathy and understanding towards the human being. It is a form of put yourself in the consumer's shoe to achieve a deep knowledge of him, with respect to his personality, his vision of the world, his desires, his environment and his needs.

On some occasions it happens that what the consumer seems to want is considered, without going any further and only taking into account what is seen superficially. In that case, the empathy map can help significantly, to see what the client really wants internally.

Objective of the Empathy Map

This map is an excellent tool whose main objective is to be able to understand and know customers. For a company to be successful, it is important that it has understanding towards its customers, that is why thanks to this tool The company can know what it cares about, what vision it has of the company, what it expects from it and how it wants to acquire its products.

With this method, the company can achieve reach beyond the superficial knowledge of your customersand in that way understand what they really need to be able to offer them what they want. Due to this, this tool can segment the target audience.

If the company knows its customers well, what they expect, what interests they have, and how they consume, would be to take a firm step to be able to group customer segments that share the same features. In this way, specific actions can be proposed for each group that share the same needs and tastes.

Advantages of the Empathy Map

Among the most outstanding advantages are:

• It deepens the knowledge of the implicit needs of the client without falling into errors.
• It makes it easy to create or modify a certain product, service, or process, which is an excellent starting point.
• It favors the possibility of creating a new company that wants to focus on the market segments that are dissatisfied.
• Provides the facility to perform favorable Marketing actions in order to reach customers.
• The profit is obtained if the client wants to buy or hire the company, due to the satisfaction they feel with the product or service offered.
• If the company understands and puts itself in the customer's shoes, it is a way to promote communication and trust, which could make a difference with the competition.

Variables that contribute to Empathy

The variables that make up empathy can be classified as follows:

Authenticity

It adjusts and effectively provides what is expected of it, since it is totally reliable.

Responsibility

Empathy usually has an ethical behavior, this is due to its high level of human and social conscience to lead a better life.

Interaction

He is friendly, listens, understands and knows what is happening in the environment.

Closeness

It allows for experience and inspires confidence.

Relevance

It plays an important role as it motivates and adjusts to needs, making life easier.

Identify innovation

It is original, reflects the positive personality, awakens interests and desires, surprises and shares values.

How to make an Empathy Map?

A large majority of authors share and agree with the following phases:

Phase 1: Segmentation

The target public should be grouped according to the different characteristics they have among themselves and thus define the diversity of groups that they have. Upon completion of segmentation, it would be appropriate to have at least a 4-group classification of customers.

Phase 2: Humanization or personalization

This map tries to empathize and it can only be done by having a known person in front of you to be able to make a good interaction. Due to that, in this phase a person from each segment has to be identified to assign characteristics Specific such as, the name, where you live, where you work, what your family life is like and what are your aspirations, among other.

Phase 3: Empathize

In phase 3, it is when you have to place yourself in the shoe of the target audience and ask them various questions related to what they think, their environment and feelings. Between them:

• What you see: Where and how is your environment, identification of your family, friends and colleagues, if the market offers you some offers, among others, so you can know their social context.
• What he says and what he does: Observe how he speaks, how he acts and that he dialogues, also see if he contradicts himself between what he does and what he says. From here you can confirm how the customer's behavior is.
• What you hear: It is important that you know what your family, friends, bosses, co-workers and all those people who are in your environment tell you. An analysis should be made of the information that you usually receive and how it influences it, the comments and everything they tell you.
• What you think and what you feel: It is essential to know what really matters to you, what are your concerns, dreams, aspirations and what concerns you most deeply.
• What are the efforts you make: In this case, you can ask what you fear, what allows you to have barriers, what are your obstacles in life and if you must face certain risks.
• What are the benefits and results you aspire to obtain: Here you can find out his true needs and desires, how he wants to achieve his goals and what success means to him.

Phase 4 Validation

When the empathy map has been completed, we proceed to quantitative and qualitative research and thus verify the hypothesis, that is, whether it is true or not.

With this tool it is possible to make favorable predictions to know in depth everything that the client feels emotionally. Despite this, it should be clear that these are only assumptions and that is why it is It is essential to do this phase, to be able to complete, together with other methodologies, confirm or deny the hypothesis.