Customer Success Playbook Podcast S3 E47 - Mary Schmid - When Empathy Tunes in Trust Turns On!

Send us a text

Strap in for another riveting episode of the Customer Success Playbook, where empathy isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a business advantage. Hosts Kevin Metzger and Roman Trebon are once again joined by communication maven Mary Schmid, who unpacks the neurological power of empathy and its pivotal role in client trust and loyalty. From the depth of scuba diving to the magic of emotional connection, Mary shares how listening with genuine curiosity can shift even the most transactional relationships into long-term partnerships.

Detailed Analysis: In this Wednesday "One Big Question" edition, the trio explores how empathy drives client loyalty, especially in high-stakes sectors like finance. Mary challenges the misconception that empathy is about agreement, reframing it instead as a courageous act of understanding. Through her neuroscience-informed approach, she explains how empathy fosters psychological safety, laying the groundwork for trust.

The conversation ventures into practical insights for customer success professionals: the importance of leading with emotional curiosity, the discipline of "listening to connect," and how to gracefully introduce differing perspectives once mutual understanding is established. Mary introduces a powerful sequence: empathy first, connection second, and then collaboration. The episode highlights that curiosity and compassion aren’t liabilities—they are strategic tools.

Also discussed: how leaders can break free from monologue mode by shifting into learner mode, and how to handle moments when your perspective diverges from the client’s. Spoiler: it involves asking permission to share, not bulldozing your view across the conversation table.

Roman humorously pitches Mary for a bigger stage beyond customer success, and honestly, we agree.

The bottom line? Connection comes before correction. Action comes after understanding.

Now you can interact with us directly by leaving a voice message at https://www.speakpipe.com/CustomerSuccessPlaybook

Please Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe.

You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:
YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcast
Twitter - @CS_Playbook

You can find Kevin at:
Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web site
Kevin Metzger on Linked In.

You can find Roman at:
Roman Trebon on Linked In.

Episode Transcript

Kevin Metzger (00:05):
Customer success.
Hello and welcome back to theCustomer Success Playbook
podcast.
I'm Kevin Metzger, joined by myco-host Roman Reon.
This is our Wednesday segment,the One Big Question, and we're
once again here with our guestcommunication and leadership
specialist, Mary Schmidt.

(00:26):
Roman excited for Wednesday.
We get to learn more about ourguests.
You, you want to kick us off?

Roman Trebon (00:31):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Before we tackle our, our onebig question with Mary, we want
our audience to get to know MaryA.
Little bit more.
So we're gonna do these quick,uh, rapid fire questions to get
to know you, Mary.
So you ready for this?
You buckled up.

Mary Schmid (00:46):
Oh, I'm buckled up and ready to talk.

Roman Trebon (00:49):
Awesome.
Awesome.
So we, we, we know you're busy,but what is, do you have a, uh,
hobby that lets you kind ofunwind and recharge when you're
not, uh, helping others?

Mary Schmid (01:00):
Sure do.
First of all, I have a dailypractice of getting outside and
walking in nature or being innature, yoga nidra and uh, yoga
and Pilates practice.
But on those special occasions,I'm a scuba diver.
I love to go scuba diving andseeing the world from underneath
where all the critters and thefish live.
And then when I'm done diving, Ijust get to spend time with the

(01:20):
people in the country that I'mvisiting, getting to know them
and their culture.
Alright, love.

Kevin Metzger (01:25):
I love diving.
I love.
I'm a big fan of diving.
I haven't gotten to go nearly asmuch as I would like to.
But yeah, I got certified incollege and have been able to go
maybe a half a dozen times sincethen.

Roman Trebon (01:36):
But not, not a lot of opportunities in Atlanta,
huh?
Kevin?
No,

Kevin Metzger (01:40):
not much.
I got certified in a, uh, a rockquarry in Pennsylvania.

Mary Schmid (01:44):
Oh my gosh.

Kevin Metzger (01:46):
There wasn't a lot of culture there.

Mary Schmid (01:49):
Oh gosh.

Kevin Metzger (01:50):
Mary, if you could, uh, jump on a plane
tomorrow and go anywhere in theworld, I'm guessing it's be
somewhere on the ocean, butwhere would it be?

Mary Schmid (01:58):
It would be the Great Barrier Reef.
I just had a friend who wentthere and, um, you know, about
six to seven years ago the Coralhas really had really bleached
out due the, due to the climate.
Well, the coral is back and theysent a GoPro video and I go
like, oh my gosh, I'm goingtomorrow.

Roman Trebon (02:16):
Yeah,

Kevin Metzger (02:16):
that's

Roman Trebon (02:17):
awesome.

Kevin Metzger (02:18):
I've heard it's been coming back.
I did a, uh, I worked for Dellfor a little while.
Uhhuh and Dell has been doing aproject where they're like
documenting the reefs.
It's like there's this AIproject that they're involved in
where they're documenting thereefs and they're kinda showing
where there's regrowth in thereefs and stuff like that.
That's kind of cool.

Mary Schmid (02:37):
Very cool.
We need to protect our reefs andour waters.
Absolutely.

Roman Trebon (02:40):
All right, Mary, last one.
Uh, this one's a little, uh,okay.
Let's say we, you, we grant youa wish you could master any
skill.
Okay.
Any skill unrelated to what youdo, what skill would you master
Mary and why?

Mary Schmid (02:54):
I would be a magician.

Roman Trebon (02:57):
I love it

Mary Schmid (02:58):
and why I find it incredibly intriguing and
adventuresome and like I don'tunderstand it.
Now, I could go on and figureout about it, but I would like
to learn how do these people dothese miraculous things that,
that are exciting andadventuresome and like.
They're an illusion, right?

Roman Trebon (03:16):
Yeah.
That's like the perfect, likewhen you go to like a party, if
you have like one magic trickthat you can pull out, it's like
the, it's like an instanticebreaker, right?
Like a deck of cards, do atrick, and it's just amazing
magic.
I, I think just, it, it turns usall into kids in, in a way,
right?
It's just amazing.

Mary Schmid (03:33):
It turns us all into kids again.

Roman Trebon (03:34):
Alright, so Mary, thank you so much.
It was great to learn about,more about you and, and your
hobbies and interests.
Kevin, you ready to get into ourone big question?

Kevin Metzger (03:43):
Yeah, the big question for today, how can
empathy play a critical role inboosting client trust and
loyalty, especially in highstakes industries like finance?
I.

Mary Schmid (03:53):
When empathy tunes in trust turns on, you cannot
have a trusting relationship ora la lasting loyalty with your
customers unless you haveempathy.
Remember what I talked about in,in, in our first session on, uh,
what I talked about on Mondaywas we've gotta listen to,
connects to, because when we'reempathetic, we understand what

(04:14):
the situation is, we're okay tounder to learn about their
perspective, which may not bethe one.
We endorse and we create a safespace to speak up.
I find the challenge with manypeople is that empathy is like a
scary word to them, that there'sno room for the prevailing
thoughts that I've come with isthat there's no room for

(04:35):
emotions in business and.
If I'm empathetic, I have toagree with what the other person
said.
Well, that's not true.
I think the bottom line is whenI get, when I understand another
person's perceptions and theirfeelings, what do I do with
that?
What do I do?
What do I say?
What do I do?
And the thing is, I say, don'tdo anything.

(04:58):
Listen to connect.
Right, so you understand thesituation.
Yep.
And then together with them,take the next step, which is,
where would you like to go withthis?
What support do you need?
How can I help you?
We take empathy, which is anunderstanding and a emotional
state, and we turn that into anaction state by demonstrating

(05:20):
compassion.

Roman Trebon (05:20):
Mary, when you, uh, on Monday, you talked about,
well, listening to connect, we,we talked all about listening.
Today we're talking aboutempathy.
The.
The, the phrase that keepscoming in my mind is genuine
curiosity, right?
Yes.
I think if you gen is this inyour, in your.
Experience.
Is this something that can betaught?
Can genuine curiosity be taught?

(05:41):
How does it develop?

Mary Schmid (05:42):
Curiosity is developed by wanting, wanting
more to, to under wanting moreto get it right than be right.
Curiosity is killed by usthinking that we have the
answer.
We know the answer.
We have to tell the answer.
Curiosity is fo fostered byturning that around and simply
saying, what do I not know?

(06:03):
The other person knows.
And am I willing to be a learnerin every situation?
You know, I say in everyconversation we lead, we have
something to learn.
And if you haven't learnedsomething from every
conversation, it wasn't aconversation.
It was your monologue.

Roman Trebon (06:20):
I love that line.
I, I'm gonna use that.
I love that line.
Yeah.
You have to be a littlevulnerable, right?
You have to say that, I don'tknow, stuff I'm curious to
learn.
I wanna learn more.
Right.

Mary Schmid (06:28):
Yeah, and it's our job to lead that.
We need to calm ourselves down,get our brain going in oxytocin,
right?
When we do that, we present calmand curious, and nonjudgmental
is the other piece of that.
We can't pretend like we haveall the answers.
Our job is to discover with ourcustomers, with our team, with

(06:49):
our vendors, and those peoplethat we care about what's going
on.
It seems so simple, but it's sohard'cause our brain gets in the
way.
It tells us we should know weshould do this.
We should.
And it's like reallycounterintuitive.

Kevin Metzger (07:04):
I'm gonna probably ask a question that I
think is a wrong question maybeor a bad question, but so.
There are scenarios, right?
Where you're working through asolution, you've gotta get to an
answer that, mm-hmm.
Maybe you do have a disagreementwith the direction something's
going.
You think it needs to go anotherdirection.

(07:24):
How do you accomplish both?
So how do you accomplishlistening?
Trying to understand wheresomebody's coming from and then
taking the time to do that.
Which I think needs to be donefirst, right?
But Correct.
Then if you, I do identify, hey,there's a discrepancy here that
we, we need to examine.

(07:45):
Maybe it's, Hey, can we examinethis idea together and see
where, where, I know I oftenwill pose it as a question, am I
mistaken in my understandinghere and do something like that?
But that's not always the rightway to go either.
That's so I'm just trying, howdo you.
Drive to a conversational pointwhere maybe you need to change

(08:07):
the direction or go in adifferent, make a different
suggestion to get to where the,the objectives lie.

Mary Schmid (08:13):
That's a very good question.
And, and we simply do you,you've, you've done like listen
to connect, you understand thesituation and you have a
different point of view.
You simply state it.
I have a different perspective,I have a different suggestion, I
have a different solution.
Are you willing to hear me out?
Can we consider this?
You have one way of thinking andI respect that.

(08:35):
I've got a, I've got a differentway.
Let's, let's look at that too.
You see, you've invited theperson.
Now you're, now you're simplysaying, um, you're telling them
the truth and they know wherethey stand because you've got a
different idea.
Maybe a better idea might not bea better idea.
It doesn't matter, but you'rebringing that to the table too.

(08:55):
Don't get me wrong.
This is not all about like, justgoing along to getting along.
It's like, okay, so I get whatyou say.
I have a different opinion.
I'd like to share that with you.
In fact, sometimes I even go sofar as asking permission.
It's a respectful thing.
May I share that with you?
And you know what people willsay?
Yes, please do.

Kevin Metzger (09:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Mary Schmid (09:15):
Because you've already gotten that baseline
where you're, you, youempathized with them and you
understood the situation, theirthoughts, their feelings are,
you understand all of that.
And now it's time to move intothe problem solving the
negotiations the next step.

Kevin Metzger (09:29):
So from a, it's really, it's part of a pro, it's
part of the process.
If you do have to get.
Once you understand it, it's,it's kind of like once you
understand what the real problemis and what the ideas for a
solution are, you've gonethrough all of those processes
and now it's like, now you're atthe actual problem solving
stage.
Yeah, exactly.

(09:49):
You've gotta get to the problemsolving stage first.

Mary Schmid (09:52):
We listen first to connect, and then that moves us
into the next stage where wesolve the problem connection
before solution.

Roman Trebon (09:59):
Action before solution.
Yeah.
We, we need this not just forour customer success
professionals.
We need, we need this across thecountry.
I think we need to listen toconnect, right?
We need this at a broader level.
Mary, we need to get you on abigger stage so you can share
this with, with people outsideof the customer success, uh,
industry, which this is.
No, this is really terrificstuff.
You're coming back Friday,right?
Mary?

(10:19):
We didn't scare you off yet.

Mary Schmid (10:20):
Not yet.
Pretty close.

Roman Trebon (10:24):
Pretty true.
Well, we have that effect onpeople.
So with Mary, we're gonna, we'regonna lock her in for Friday.
Uh, we're gonna dive into, uh,empathy as a loyalty driver.
Um, uh, we're really gonna talkabout, hey, how ai, AI might
support or threaten, maybe we'lltalk about this, the whole trust
building approach, right?
So where does techno, what's therole of technology?

(10:45):
Does it support, uh, empathy?
Does it support, uh,conversations or is it a threat
to that?
So to our audience, thanks.
Thanks always for listening.
We really appreciate it.
Don't for, uh, forget tosubscribe.
You'll get notifications,comment like the show, give us a
rating.
We really appreciate it.
Uh, we'll see you on Friday forAI Friday.

(11:06):
Until then, Kevin, keep onplaying.