The “Empathy Gap”

The other day I wrote a piece on trying to see the toy industry from a consumer’s point of view. In other words, what do we, not as individual companies or stores but as an entire industry look like to them?

It was with this in mind that I was drawn to an interview in the Saturday, January 24, 2009 New York Times with author Dev Patnaik. The interview, entitled “Companies from Mars, Customers from Venus,” talked about Patnaik’s new book Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy.”  

Patnaik has developed a term, “empathy gap,” which he describes as the disparity between how company employees see their customers and how those customers see themselves.

When asked by the interviewer to define empathy in this business sense, Patnaik responded by saying:

It’s about stepping outside of your company and getting your entire organization to get a sense of what the outside world thinks and feels, as opposed to just what those inside your organization think and feel.

Essentially, our business is not in our heads and offices.  For us in the toy industry, it is out there in the homes of our consumers and in the stores in which they shop. We may sometimes get too involved in focusing on our own products and not on those who use them.

I know that I am always surprised by what I learn and reinvigorated by the experience each time I go out to the stores and talk to shoppers. Why not take some time this week to leave the office and visit some stores. While there, don’t just look at your product or your department. Take in the whole experience. In fact, if you are over 50, take a long someone you know who has kids under seven years old (in fact, take the kids too). You may gain a whole lot of empathy. You may also get a new idea for how to be a better marketer.