--- title: "Empathy" description: "6 posts about Empathy, summarised, each linking to the original." --- # Empathy > 6 posts about Empathy, summarised, each linking to the original. ## Articles ### [MarketingProfs' Ann Handley on content marketing - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/marketingprofs-x27-ann-handley-on-content-marketing-the-intercom-blog.md) - Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md) - Published: Oct 13, 2026 - Type: Explainer Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, was an early practitioner of content marketing to engage customers. She emphasizes empathy, thinking from the customer’s point of view rather than the company’s. For B2B marketers, she advises telling a bigger story beyond the product, citing Slack’s podcast about work culture and innovation. She recommends measuring content quality by whether customers would thank you for it, a simple test that clarifies value. Handley also highlights writing with personality and the label-off test, where stripping branding reveals if content sounds distinctive, and her book “Everybody Writes” inspires companies to use words better as ambassadors for their brand. The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing and should be content people want or enjoy. ### [CoSupport's Sarah Hatter on customer support - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/cosupport-x27-s-sarah-hatter-on-customer-support-the-intercom-blog.md) - Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md) - Published: Oct 12, 2026 - Type: Explainer Sarah Hatter, founder of CoSupport and author of the Customer Support Handbook, discussed the evolution of customer support with Intercom. She noted that customers now prefer self-service over contacting support, so simple FAQ pages and email forms are no longer sufficient. Hatter stressed that support must prove company empathy through personalized language, and tracking feature requests, bug reports, and customer tone positions support as the front line for product improvement. When scaling, instead of simply adding hires to handle rising queries, teams should refine processes to reduce the need for support. In hiring, process can be taught but light-heartedness, self-management, and getting to the root of empathy cannot, and Hatter’s Elevate Summit achieved 60% women and 30% non-white by featuring front-line workers instead of only founders and CEOs. ### [Embracing a human tone in customer support - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/embracing-a-human-tone-in-customer-support-the-intercom-blog.md) - Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md) - Published: Oct 9, 2026 - Type: Explainer The post argues that making customer support conversations more human, by acknowledging emotions and personal context, is key to delivering next-level service, especially on chat platforms like Intercom. It advises support reps to recognize ‘signs of life’ such as crying emojis or a simple ‘how are you?’, and to respond truthfully rather than with a robotic script. When agents inevitably make mistakes, such as sending the wrong link, they should own the error transparently and use humor or emoji to diffuse tension. Emoji and GIFs are encouraged in light moments, but the human tone should not be forced; it works best when natural and when reps look beyond conversations to gather candid product feedback. Over the long term, personal interactions make support faster by building familiarity with customers, allowing reps to recall context at a glance. ### [Empathy: the key to better support content - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/empathy-the-key-to-better-support-content-the-intercom-blog.md) - Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md) - Published: Oct 9, 2026 - Type: Explainer As businesses scale, they risk losing touch with customer problems, which becomes apparent in support content. The post argues that empathy—both cognitive and emotional—is essential for creating effective help content. Cognitive empathy involves understanding customer perspectives by surrounding oneself with customer information, as Harley Davidson does with bike trip photos, and by staying informed about product evolution through conversations with design, support, and engineering teams. Emotional empathy requires experiencing the frustrations customers face, such as imagining a world without the product’s key features or actively finding and reporting bugs to understand user pain, as encouraged by Intercom’s “if you find something broken, you now own fixing it” poster. By combining both types of empathy, support writers can produce content that resonates with users and addresses their real needs, as shown in Intercom’s Smart Campaigns and User Map documentation. ### [Dear customer support. You don’t need that technical degree. - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/dear-customer-support-you-don-t-need-that-technical-degree-the-interco.md) - Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md) - Published: Oct 8, 2026 - Type: Explainer A customer support team for a software company does not need all members to hold technical degrees, according to a post from Intercom’s blog. The team, including Customer Support Representatives and Customer Support Engineers, boasts backgrounds from a TV editor to a Navy SEAL. Non-technical members offer empathy by relating to customers’ learning curves, reassuring them about technical tasks like checking the browser console. They also help technical colleagues become better teachers by demanding simple explanations of complex issues, crucial when the company ships daily updates and needs clear instructions for tasks like configuring DNS records. Fresh perspectives from non-technical backgrounds challenge established workflows and spark creativity, leading to more personal and enjoyable support. ### [2022 customer support trends: How support leaders are adapting - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/2022-customer-support-trends-how-support-leaders-are-adapting-the-inte.md) - Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md) - Published: Oct 8, 2026 - Type: Explainer Intercom’s second Customer Support Trends Report, based on a survey of over 1,200 global support leaders across tech, e-commerce, and finance, outlines five trends reshaping the industry in 2022. Customer expectations continue to rise, with 75% of leaders reporting a widening gap; experts advise blending proactive messaging, self-service, and easy access to human agents. Support teams face increasing pressure: 59% report higher incoming volume, 52% have reduced headcount, and 48% say those cuts hurt the customer experience, forcing leaders to find efficiencies without sacrificing quality. Agent burnout is prevalent, exacerbated by longer hours and disconnected tools that slow down nearly half of teams; leaders are redesigning workflows and rethinking traditional KPIs to better support their staff. Empathy has become a top priority for 73% of teams, but 21% feel they lack the enabling tools; building a sustainable empathetic culture requires a holistic investment in strategy, processes, technology, and people.