As a customer, dealing with companies of any reasonable size is not something you relish. And the more complex your query or dispute, the more likely it is that you will spend multiple phone calls, burning up your airtime, trying to explain to an almost endless series of nameless call centre agents what your problem is. Often, you run into a brick wall in that the company you’re dealing with has clearly defined processes, which the junior agent you are speaking to has no authority to overrule, and getting hold of someone higher up the food chain is next to impossible.

So when the Inquba CEO, Michael Renzon starts talking about the concept of scaling empathy, I sit up a little straighter and engage my scepticism filter. Is it possible for a company that doesn’t really know me to engage with customers in a way that at least shows they understand the underlying issues?