NCSA Web-Ed Series

Monthly webinars enriching customer service professionals worldwide

We are taking a pause for summer. The Web-Ed will return in September with more live, expert-led sessions to elevate your service skills.

Each month, NCSA hosts expert-led webinars on critical topics shaping customer service excellence. Every session includes a live Q&A, giving participants the chance to engage directly with industry leaders. Have a topic suggestion? Email us at info@nationalcsa.com.

These live webinars are free and open to all. For exclusive access to our full library of past webinar recordings join NCSA today!


There's a critical gap between envisioning perfect customer service and delivering it. The missing piece is something everyone is born with the capacity to use: empathy. When deployed effectively, empathy strengthens the relationship between businesses and customers. It enhances the quality and impact of service, increases satisfaction, and drives loyalty and retention.

Ninety-seven percent of customers say empathy is the most important element in customer service, yet 42 percent of employees struggle with it. Widely perceived as a soft skill, empathy is actually a superpower and a vital part of business success. This presentation will show why you can’t deliver successful customer service without it.

Award-winning author Rob Volpe demystifies empathy and clears up the misconceptions that lead to mistakes. He'll share the 5 Steps to Empathy, a practical framework that fosters authentic connections with customers and with internal stakeholders responsible for improving service. The result: greater clarity, consensus, and meaningful change in your customer service approach.

Attendees will learn:

  1. The misconceptions about what empathy is and is not
  2. Why empathy is a strength, not a weakness, in business
  3. How to overcome common barriers to being empathetic with customers and key constituents
  4. Practical application tips and examples for empathetic customer service
  5. Tools to build and strengthen your empathy "muscles"

About the Speaker
Rob Volpe is an astute observer of life and a master storyteller who brings empathy and compassion to the human experience. He is the author of the award-winning book Tell Me More About That: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time. Rob is also the Founder of Ignite 360, an insights and marketing strategy firm.

Rob is a thought leader and speaker in the improvement of communication and collaboration. Rob works with organizations of all sizes in all industries to implement customized training, coaching and consulting programs that help drive results through the strategic use of empathy in the workplace and life.

Rob has worked with clients across a range of industries, including Amazon, Starbucks, General Mills, Abbott Laboratories, Microsoft, Ulta Beauty, Whole Foods, Pernod-Ricard, Wells Fargo, Kraft Heinz, Nestle, and Cargill.

Rob is a contributor to Entrepreneur’s Leadership Network and frequently speaks on the topic. He’s been quoted in Advertising Week, Mashable, Huffington Post, TheStreet, Hemispheres magazine and the Chicago Tribune, among others. He is a regular contributor to the mid-morning lifestyle show Good Things Utah on KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City.

Rob is a graduate of Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and lives in San Francisco with his husband and three cats.