Michael Mattson explores how businesses can measure empathy, rethink traditional CX metrics and design emotionally intelligent customer journeys.
In today’s business world, metrics dominate boardroom conversations, but is empathy the missing ingredient in how organisations measure, design, and deliver customer experiences still?
Welcome to our CX Dialogues video series! In this episode, we sit down with Michael Mattson, Customer Relationship Rescuer and Empathy Leader. He agrees that empathy must be woven into the fabric of customer experience strategy.
He also unpacks the challenge of quantifying empathy, the limitations of traditional CX metrics like CSAT, and how AI can enhance rather than replace the human touch. He also explores how emotions shape customer journeys and why the future of CX will depend on proactive, empathy-driven design.
READ MORE: CX Dialogues: David Hicks, Founder and CEO of XM Coach
Top insights from the interview:
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT), NPS, and effort scores are useful signals but incomplete in isolation. True understanding comes from combining these signals with behavioural data, verbatim, and retention outcomes.
- Mapping anxiety, frustration, or relief alongside touchpoints reveals critical pain points and opportunities for proactive trust-building that businesses often overlook.
- Within five years, complaint filing as we know it could disappear, as AI-driven systems predict issues and trigger resolutions before customers even notice a problem.
Watch the full interview here.
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