You can't have empathy for a need, but you can have empathy for the pain the person is feeling due to their needs. Empathy isn't really all that useful. What you really want is compassion for the customer and their needs.
When you pay a therapist to listen to you, do you want them to feel anguished, anxiety-stricken, rage-filled? Or do you want them to listen to you, understand your feelings, and calmly help you cope with them? The former makes for a very ineffective therapist; they wouldn't be able to get through the day doing that for every patient. But the latter allows them to do their job, which is to help you solve your problems.
Compassion also helps you choose better solutions. When you're empathizing, you're using your emotions, and we don't think clearly when we're emotional. When you're compassionate, you can consider their emotional state, but you may need to ignore it to provide the best solution, which might not be one that appeases their emotions. I have often over-empathized with customers' problems, and subsequently gotten angry when a solution I wanted to use [to alleviate their pain quickly] wasn't implemented. The calm approach was longer, but better in the end, and didn't have me lashing out at the bureaucracy.
I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. For me, empathy is a root of compassion.
E.g., a friend of mine had an OS problem where she lost a bunch of files. I felt empathy first, and expressed it first as well. Only then did I turn to compassionate aid.
It's true that one has to manage those emotions, but that's true of all emotions.
> Empathy for customer needs
You can't have empathy for a need, but you can have empathy for the pain the person is feeling due to their needs. Empathy isn't really all that useful. What you really want is compassion for the customer and their needs.
When you pay a therapist to listen to you, do you want them to feel anguished, anxiety-stricken, rage-filled? Or do you want them to listen to you, understand your feelings, and calmly help you cope with them? The former makes for a very ineffective therapist; they wouldn't be able to get through the day doing that for every patient. But the latter allows them to do their job, which is to help you solve your problems.
Compassion also helps you choose better solutions. When you're empathizing, you're using your emotions, and we don't think clearly when we're emotional. When you're compassionate, you can consider their emotional state, but you may need to ignore it to provide the best solution, which might not be one that appeases their emotions. I have often over-empathized with customers' problems, and subsequently gotten angry when a solution I wanted to use [to alleviate their pain quickly] wasn't implemented. The calm approach was longer, but better in the end, and didn't have me lashing out at the bureaucracy.