Wednesday 21st November 2007
Empathy index ‘linked to profitability'
Three-year study by Harding & Yorke produces measure of how it feels to be a customer

Jamie Lywood, managing director, Harding & Yorke

UK-- A new index measuring ‘customer empathy' aims to help businesses build profits by managing service quality.

The new metric is the result of a three-year benchmark programme completed in June by the Empathy Rating Index Company (Eric) - a division of customer experience consultancy Harding & Yorke.

The study, which grew out of the firm's existing customer empathy audit, looked at how experiences with call centres make customers feel. Harding & Yorke studied hundreds of recorded calls, and made some of its own.

The firm claims it found a "very strong" correlation between the six dimensions of the Eric index and company profitability.

The work has now been validated by marketing experts Dr Yuksel Ekinci of Oxford Brookes University and Professor Merlin Stone. Harding & Yorke's managing director Jamie Lywood told Research he believes the methodology will also be valid in the contexts of retail, internet and correspondence.

Lywood says Eric is about "measuring the effect of what you do, rather than measuring what you do".

Too many businesses, he says, are using customer satisfaction and loyalty indices "that have become measures because someone says they are," but which have little use for measuring profitability.

"People need to look at what they are measuring, and whether it is of value to them - how they can affect the customer's behaviour and capture customers' wallets," says Lywood. "Eric has the potential to become a key metric score in the managing of profitability."


Author: Robert Bain

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