Temkin Group Launches Amplify Empathy Challenge, a New Campaign to Raise Level of Empathy Within Organizations

WABAN, Mass., March 31, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Temkin Group announces the launch of its Amplify Empathy™ Challenge. To help organizations develop more empathy for their customers, Temkin Group has established a new website, www.AmplifyEmpathy.com, allowing people to share their ideas and best practices.

To accelerate the sharing of ideas, Temkin Group will award $2,500 for the top ideas that are submitted on the website. Temkin Group will award $500 Amazon.com gift certificates to five different people who provide the best ideas for building organizational empathy. Temkin Group will announce the winners on July 15, 2014 on the Amplify Empathy™ website and on the Customer Experience Matters® blog.

"People have a natural instinct for helping other people, but the dynamics within companies dampen the empathetic connection between employees and customers," states Bruce Temkin, Managing Partner of Temkin Group. "We want Amplify Empathy to motivate people to think of fresh new ways to help their organizations better understand and serve the needs of customers."

Temkin Group encourages people to visit www.AmplifyEmpathy.com and participate in the Amplify Empathy™ Challenge. The site will also provide links to Temkin Group research on organizational empathy. Individuals can also download a digital badge from the site if they "Pledge to Amplify Empathy" in their organizations.

Temkin Group's research has uncovered three steps for building organizational empathy: Perceive (examine how customers are responding to you), Reflect (think about how your actions are causing customers to feel the way that they do), and Adjust (change what you do to improve customers' experience).

Temkin Group will continue to publish research on the topic of organizational empathy. In a recently released an eBook, People-Centric Experience Design, Temkin Group identified a key principle called "Guide with Empathy." Some of the advice includes:

• Refer to customers as people, not data
• Examine your customers' journeys
• Discuss customer feedback…often.
• Spread customers' actual words
• Assume that customers will be confused.
• Raise awareness of customer's emotional state
• Empower random acts of kindness.

Winners of the Amplify Empathy™ Challenge will be selected by Temkin Group based on its evaluation of the ideas submitted on the Website. The criteria that it will use include the innovativeness of the idea, the success that it has achieved, and its ability to be replicated by other organizations. Temkin Group reserves the right to name fewer than five winners if the website does not receive enough strong entrants.

For more information about the Amplify Empathy Challenge, visit www.AmplifyEmpathy.com. Content about organizational empathy can be found on the blog, Customer Experience Matters^®, at ExperienceMatters.wordpress.com.

For more information about Temkin Group, visit www.TemkinGroup.com.

About Temkin Group: Temkin Group is widely recognized as a leading customer experience research and consulting firm. Many of the world's largest brands rely on its insights and advice to steer their transformational journeys. Temkin Group combines customer experience thought leadership with a deep understanding of the dynamics of organizations to help accelerate results. Rather than layering on cosmetic changes, Temkin Group helps companies embed practices within their culture by building four critical competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Employee Engagement, Compelling Brand Values, and Customer Connectedness. The firm's ongoing research identifies leading and emerging best practices across a wide range of activities for engaging the hearts and minds of customers, employees, and partners. For more information, contact Bruce Temkin at 617-916-2075 or send an email.

About Bruce Temkin: Bruce Temkin is widely recognized as a customer experience thought leader and is Customer Experience Transformist and Managing Partner of Temkin Group. He is also the author of a very popular blog, Customer Experience Matters (ExperienceMatters.wordpress.com). Prior to forming Temkin Group, he was a VP at Forrester Research for 12 years. Bruce is a highly demanded speaker who consistently receives high marks for his content-rich, entertaining keynote addresses. He is also the co-founder and Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.org), a global non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of customer experience management.

Customer experience matters is a registered trademark of Temkin Group.

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SOURCE Temkin Group