Jay Baer: How Empathy Gets Your Customers Talking

In this episode, Maria and Jay discuss:

What an empathetic brand really means.
Empathy as a talk trigger for word of mouth marketing.
How your brand can show empathy digitally.
A game-changing story of situational empathy that made Jay a brand fan for life
Empathy in action – experiences that Jay has had that you can do in your business now, regardless of size.

Key Takeaways:

Everybody cares about word of mouth, everybody hears about it, but nobody talks about it. It is something that we take for granted and that is a mistake. Nobody has ever once said, “We don’t care about word of mouth”. Ever.
Brands are not built in good times. Brands are built in bad times. Right now is where winners and losers are going to be decided. Those who lean into empathy will win.
Brands need to shop for the groceries, but then let the team member cook their own recipe.
Empathy takes time – you are not one social meme away from changing the perception of the public. Stay the course and it will succeed.

“A human treating a human like a human and reading the room successfully – ultimately, that’s all empathy is. And, usually, the problem is brands get in the way of empathy…and usually the people in the organization want to be more empathetic.” — Jay Baer

About Jay Baer: Jay Baer, CSP, CPAE has spent 25 years in digital marketing and customer experience, consulting for more than 700 companies during that period, including 34 of the FORTUNE 500. His current firm – Convince & Convert – provides word of mouth, digital marketing, and customer experience advice and counsel to some of the world’s most important brands.

His newest book, Talk Triggers, is the complete guide to creating customers using strategic, operational differentiators that compel word of mouth. In the best companies, the customers do the marketing. Talk Triggers is the instruction manual for making businesses grow with customer conversation.

Hug Your Haters – Jay’s book on modern customer service and customer experience techniques – revolutionized the way business thinks about customer interactions and was named one of the top 3 business books of 2016 by Strategy + Business.

His second book, Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype, was #3 on the New York Times business best seller list, and a runaway #1 Amazon best seller.

Jay speaks approximately 60 times per year world-wide, often with lessons about how businesspeople can use today’s shifts in technology and consumer expectations to gain or keep more customers.

Jay’s Convince & Convert blog was named the world’s #1 content marketing blog by the Content Marketing Institute, and is visited by more than 250,000 marketers each month. Jay also hosts and produces the Social Pros podcast, which is downloaded 65,000 times monthly and was named best marketing podcast by the Content Marketing Awards.

He also has a weekly Talk Triggers show about word of mouth, featured on YouTube, and as a podcast.

A fixture in social media, Jay has been named a top influencer of CMOs, B2B marketers, small business owners, and digital marketers. He’s also one of the world’s top Global Gurus in customer service and customer experience.

Convince & Convert is the fifth multi-million dollar company Jay has started from scratch. Before his move into digital marketing in 1994, he was a brand marketer and a political consultant, with major roles in state, federal, and presidential electoral campaigns.

Befitting his roots in Arizona, Jay is a tequila collector and maintains his allegiance to the teams of his alma mater, the University of Arizona.

Jay lives in the idyllic college town of Bloomington, Indiana with his wife and children, and travels from Indianapolis to speaking opportunities world-wide.

Connect with Jay Baer:

Twitter: @jaybaer

Facebook: Jay Baer

Website: JayBaer.com & ConvinceAndConvert.com

Book: Now Revolution, Talk Triggers, Hug Your Haters, and More!

Show: Social Pros & Standing Ovation & The Talk Triggers Show

YouTube: Jay Baer

LinkedIn: Jay Baer

Instagram: @jaybaer

References:

DoSomethingStrategic.org

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