“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” Those are the words of Alfred Adler, the renowned Austrian psychotherapist. In the world of customer service, empathy has long been heralded as the golden key to unlocking customer satisfaction. Show customers you care, understand their pain, acknowledge their frustration, and all will be well. Or so we have been told.
However, recent research suggests that when it comes to managing online customer complaints, not all empathy is created equal. In fact, the type of empathy a business displays in response to a customer’s complaint can make the difference between winning back trust and losing prospective customers entirely.
A groundbreaking study published in the 2025 edition of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science has shed new light on this critical aspect of customer complaint management. The research, titled “The role of empathy in providers’ online customer complaints management,” was conducted by researchers who examined how different forms of empathy in provider responses affect prospective customers’ reactions.
The study makes a crucial distinction that many customer service professionals have overlooked. There are, in fact, two fundamentally different types of empathy that can be employed when responding to customer complaints: affective empathy and cognitive empathy.
Affective Empathy is what most people think of when they hear the word empathy. It involves acknowledging and responding to the complainer’s emotions. This is the “I understand you’re frustrated” or “I can see how upset this has made you” approach. It is empathy that focuses on the emotional state of the customer. When a business employs affective empathy, it is essentially holding up a mirror to the customer’s feelings, validating those emotions, and showing that the business recognises the emotional impact of the negative experience.
Cognitive Empathy, on the other hand, takes a different approach entirely. Rather than focusing primarily on emotions, cognitive empathy demonstrates perspective-taking to understand the complainer’s situation. It is about showing that the business understands not just how the customer feels, but why they feel that way. Cognitive empathy goes beyond emotional validation to demonstrate a deep understanding of the customer’s specific circumstances, needs, and the practical implications of the service failure.
The distinction might seem subtle, but the research reveals that the impact on prospective customers—those watching from the side lines, reading reviews and complaints before making their own purchasing decisions—is anything but subtle.
The study covered an impressive dataset, including 12,638 negative reviews on TripAdvisor and 36,478 complaints on Facebook. The findings were clear and consistent. Cognitive empathy is generally more effective than affective empathy in increasing prospective customers’ likes and purchases. In other words, when potential customers see a business respond to a complaint by demonstrating that it truly understands the situation rather than simply acknowledging the emotions involved, they are more likely to engage positively with that business.
This is particularly true when a complaint is formulated concretely. When a customer provides specific details about what went wrong—the room was not cleaned, the food arrived cold, the product malfunctioned on the third day—a response that demonstrates cognitive empathy by addressing those specific circumstances proves far more effective than one that simply validates the customer’s frustration.
However, it is important to note that affective empathy is not without its place in the complaint management toolkit. The research found that affective empathy becomes more suitable when a complaint is intensely affective. In situations where a customer’s complaint is dripping with emotion, where the focus is less on specific details and more on the intensity of their disappointment, anger, or frustration, responding with affective empathy can be the right approach.
To further validate their findings, the researchers conducted four experiments that confirmed cognitive empathy leads prospective customers to view providers as more competent. This is a critical insight. Competence is one of the key attributes that customers seek in service providers. When a business demonstrates cognitive empathy, it signals to prospective customers that this is an organisation that understands its business, understands its customers’ needs, and can address problems effectively. Ultimately, this perception of competence enhances purchase intentions among prospective customers.
The implications of this research for businesses are profound. In today’s digital age, customer complaints are no longer private matters between a business and an individual customer. Every complaint posted online becomes a public performance, watched by countless prospective customers who are researching businesses before making their own purchasing decisions. The response to that complaint, therefore, is not just about addressing the individual complainant. It is about sending a message to everyone watching.
From the above discussion, it is apparent that businesses need to be much more strategic in how they craft responses to online complaints. The knee-jerk reaction of many customer service professionals is to immediately validate the customer’s emotions. While this might seem like the caring thing to do, it may not be the most effective approach for winning over prospective customers.
Instead, businesses should focus on demonstrating a deep understanding of the specific situation that led to the complaint. This requires more than template responses or generic apologies. It demands that customer service professionals take the time to truly understand the details of each complaint and craft responses that show they have grasped the full context and implications of the service failure.
This is not to say that emotions should be ignored entirely. The research makes it clear that there are situations where affective empathy is the appropriate response. The key is discernment. Customer service professionals must develop the ability to assess the nature of each complaint and determine whether it calls for a response that primarily addresses emotions or one that demonstrates situational understanding.
It is also worth noting that the effectiveness of cognitive empathy in enhancing perceptions of competence has broader implications for brand reputation. In a competitive marketplace, competence is a differentiator. Businesses that consistently demonstrate through their complaint responses that they understand their customers’ situations in depth will build reputations as knowledgeable, capable organisations. This reputation will extend far beyond the immediate complaint situation to influence overall brand perception.
The practical application of these findings requires training and guidance for customer service teams. Many organisations invest heavily in training their staff to be emotionally supportive when dealing with complaints. While emotional intelligence remains important, the training must expand to include skills in perspective-taking and situational analysis. Customer service professionals need to learn how to quickly analyse the nature of a complaint, identify the key circumstances that led to the problem, and craft responses that demonstrate a thorough understanding of those circumstances.
Additionally, businesses should audit their complaint response templates and guidelines. If these resources are heavily weighted toward emotional validation without providing frameworks for demonstrating cognitive empathy, they need to be revised. The goal should be to equip customer service teams with the tools and language they need to show prospective customers that this is a competent organisation that truly understands its business and its customers.
The research also highlights the importance of monitoring not just how complainants respond to complaint resolutions, but how prospective customers react. Metrics such as engagement with responses, likes, shares, and subsequent purchase behaviour among those who have viewed complaint exchanges should become standard measures of complaint management effectiveness.
In conclusion, the message is clear. While empathy remains essential in customer complaint management, the type of empathy matters enormously. Businesses that master the art of cognitive empathy—demonstrating deep understanding of their customers’ specific situations—will not only resolve individual complaints more effectively but will also win the trust and business of the countless prospective customers watching from the side lines. In the public theatre of online complaint management, showing you understand the situation is more powerful than simply showing you care about the emotions. Mind over heart, it seems, is the winning formula.
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