Empathetic statements

For example, you could say, ‘I can see how this situation has affected you,’ ‘You seem to be feeling frustrated by what happened,’ ‘I appreciate your courage in speaking up,’ etc.

Non-verbal cues

Non-verbal cues contribute to building rapport with customers. They can help you to show empathy by reinforcing it with verbal messages, and emphasise your attentiveness and engagement.

Avoid empathy blockers

These are words or actions that prevent empathy from emerging, which affects the formation of trust and reduces the chances of resolving the problem.

For example, criticism, devaluation, accusations, interruptions, jumping off the topic, turning the conversation into a personal one, sarcasm, irony, etc.

It is also dangerous to let your own prejudices and the conclusions you draw from them run wild, instead of paying maximum attention to the other person, their emotions and feelings.

The parties behave more balanced
In the conversation, the mediators find an explanation for this: when a person sees himself, he subconsciously watches his actions so as not to ‘look bad’. In addition, the person on the screen perceives themselves as if they are on a film set, as if many more people can see them, and therefore it is better to look more polite.

It is difficult to follow the facial expressions of the parties in online mediation
Based on her experience, Ana argues that it is much easier to monitor the facial expressions of the parties in online mediation. One of the advantages of online mediation is that people are less likely to ‘put on masks’ and hide their facial expressions, as they do when they enter a mediator's office.

Seeing yourself on the screen is distracting
The mediator's task is to immerse the parties in the procedure and to understand well how to technically organise the process (turn on/off microphones, cameras, create rooms for individual meetings, etc.) so that the parties are active participants in the mediation.

Online mediation is easier to organise
In her mediation practice, Ana had two cases from the labour and criminal spheres at the same time: two employees of two different companies approached her as a mediator. It turned out that they both had the same lawyer. Therefore, a preliminary meeting on two different cases was held simultaneously in the Zuma, but in different session rooms.