By showing empathy, you demonstrate your interest. You show that you care about the person and really mean what you say because it shows in your body language. To verbally demonstrate empathy, you can use the following simple techniques best described by an example.

Consider this sentence:

“Oh, I’ve had it. Clients just don’t know what they want!”

Suppose you want to respond with empathy so you can build a conversation to go deeper into the real cause of the issue. There are several methods you can use:

• Mimic. Use the basic mimic technique to say the same sentence in your own way. In this case, you simply establish that you are hearing him.  

Example: “You’ve had it. You think clients don’t know what they want.”

• Rephrase. A better answer is todeliver your understanding in your own words.

Example: “You think that clients waste your time.”

• Reflect and Rephrase. This is a powerful empathy method that works both on feelings and emotions. Essentially you rephrase the statement and deliver it with emotional words.

Example: “Your clients make your life difficult.”

As you can see Reflect and Rephrase sounds more effective as you try to show your understanding by saying the same thing in your own words and at the same time you add emotional reflection into it.

Empathy is a simple yet powerful technique to use when you find yourself in an awkward situation and is highly recommended due to its ease of use and huge reward.