While statistics and more quantitative traits of customer service are important, nowadays customers seem to focus more on the emotional and qualitative side of things. Customers will tend to focus more on how they felt after an interaction with an organisation than on the metrics and figures involved like AHTs (Average Handling Time) and other KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Therefore, the emotional intelligence, of yourself and/or employees that may intermingle with customers and clients, play a big role.
Emotional intelligence deals with 2 major areas. While simple, knowing what they are can go a long way when it comes to developing your emotional intelligence.
Self-Awareness
This is the ability to be aware of your challenges, emotions, triggers, and personal strengths. As cliché as it may be to say, it’s hard to learn and thus please a customer if you don’t even know yourself too well. Knowing your strengths and your limits well is vital to communicating with clients effectively. Furthermore, particularly self-aware employees will also be conscious of what generally motivates them to perform well every day.
Self-management
Somewhat of a sub-category of self-awareness, self-management is about being able to manage your emotions effectively rather than just knowing about them. For some people, it can be challenging to deal with a customer, and it can be difficult to keep a level head when tensions get high. People with good self-management skills are able to adapt to challenges regardless of the circumstances. They are better at managing stress levels and as a result, will be able to offer better customer service
Social awareness
A lot of this category is to do with your ability to empathise. To deal with customers, one must be able to recognise and understand the emotional cues of said customers as well as their co-workers. Being able to tell the signs of an irritated customer or noticing that a customer even needs help in the first place is key to providing excellent service. Empathy like this allows you to put yourself in their shoes, understand their needs, create a more genuine and human connection, which in turn will allow you to please your customer/client and/or recover from a prior negative experience they’ve had with your company.
Relationship management
This is a sub-category of the previously spoken about second area of emotional intelligence. Being emotionally intelligent will translate to you developing more positive relations with your clients. Consequently, you will build trust and credibility which will cause a higher rate of returning customers and increased sales.
The benefits of improving your emotional intelligence
Here are the main reasons you should improve in this area of customer service. After all, there are quite a few reasons and in general, it can be beneficial to both your organisation and your customers.
Increased sales
Emotional intelligence can cause an increase in sales. To expand on this point, consider that research has shown that sales agents with high emotional intelligence tend to generate higher levels of revenue. For example, research at a large insurance company showed that their more emotionally intelligent agents sold policies with an average premium of $114,000, which was almost twice as much as agents with low emotional intelligence.
Customer loyalty
A customer who experiences more pleasant service is likely to return in the future, becoming more loyal to the brand as they do. Emotionally intelligent service is a sure-fire method of ensuring their experience is indeed pleasant. This will also most likely lead to them praising your brand to others, thus increasing word of mouth and this will mean there’s a chance of an influx of new customers swarming to your organisation.
Moreover, if you factor in that the cost of acquiring a new client can be ten times higher than keeping existing ones, you can see why it can be a good idea to generate some loyalty in your customers.
Lower operating costs
With more loyal customers, your operating costs will be reduced. Loyal customers who are pleased with the service will have less need to get back in touch for help and so the time spent on each customer will decrease. Both of these plus the increase in sales will translate to much more revenue being generated.
In conclusion, emotional intelligence benefits the company, the clients, and the employees. There really is no good reason to ignore the significance of it and you should feel encouraged to bear this trait in mind when hiring, training, and supporting your staff. It is certainly an investment that will pay off in a variety of ways and has the potential to improve all areas of operations in your organisation. If you would like to find out more details visit the Excelify Solutions website (https://www.excelifysolutions.com/) or contact us at Contact@ExcelifySolutions.com.