Research proves that emotional intelligence is beneficial for marketing and customer service exchanges. The research greatly supports arguments in favor of implementing emotional intelligence in customer service.
You'd be surprised how many live representatives wish they could turn off their emotions to do their jobs correctly. You can't blame them; after hours of interacting with angry, rude, and disgruntled customers, who wouldn't want to turn off their feelings to stay sane. However, there's a reason that would be a bad idea: Emotional intelligence can help to provide fantastic customer service, ultimately assisting companies gain better recognition in the market.
Emotional intelligence can provide exceptional customer service i9n the following seven ways:
1. It shows you care.
"When customers share their stories, they're not just sharing pain points. They're actually teaching you how to make your product, service, and business better." - Kristin Smaby
And while they share their obstacles faced while using your product or service, they'd expect your support operators to care. What's more, they'd also take a note of how the support operator feels about their issue. So understand this: the most pivotal role emotional intelligence can play in your job is that it shows customers you care.
Conversely, a lack of emotional intelligence would give the customers at the other end an image that their queries aren't receiving the kind of attention they'd expected or that the company isn't handling all customer queries with the required seriousness. This can harm your company's relations with existing customers. And, many people tend to turn away from organizations that portray an attitude that's too corporate.
2. Unemotional responses can make customers angry.
There's a reason customers have shown distaste for automated or unemotional responses. A lack of emotional intelligence can make it very difficult for customers to put up with your company's customer service. Even though you will be dealing with customers over live chat, it's essential that live chat representatives show concern by using the right words. Responses that look robotic can give off a wrong impression to frustrated customers.
On the other hand, knowing that you're talking to a real person who can comprehend your situation is a lot more comforting. In fact, the No. 1 reason people dislike getting in touch with companies is not being able to speak to a real person right away. Moreover, conducting in-depth help greatly reduces the chances of conflict and therefore, helps companies earn customers for life.
3. It reflects understanding.
Getting to know your customers is essential. Understanding them helps you personalize your customer service so it not only meets their expectations but also boosts customer satisfaction rate. But how do you go about knowing your customers better?
Microsoft Dynamics live chat integration is one way that will help your support operators know customers better and understand their problems. Categorizing and storing chat transcripts and other customer exchange information will enable live chat operators to offer personalized support. And with personalized support, customers will experience an emotional connection with operators.
More importantly, a sense of emotional intelligence enables live chat representatives to speak to every customer differently.
4. It improves the quality of interactions.
It's true that even computer-generated responses focus on relaying politeness to the customer, but a thoughtless "How can I help you?" coming from a bot can do more damage than good. Humans surpass computers by using the right tone, and this adds greater value to the conversation. Knowing that you're talking to someone who can empathize with your situation matters a lot. That's why a casual yet respectful greeting can do wonders for improving the quality of the upcoming interaction. Emotional intelligence is what helps live support chat operators deliver the right statements at the right time. Phrases like "Now, don't you worry, ma'am" and "This is a common error, and we can fix it in no time," when said at the best time, can work well at retaining customers.
5. It helps in assessing the situation.
When you apply emotional intelligence in customer service, you gain the ability to read between the lines. Where computers require grammatically correct and punctuated sentences, live chat representatives can assess the situation from a few phrases. Depending on your business, people can be in different situations when contacting customer service, and emotional intelligence can assist in dealing with them accordingly. It allows yo to evaluate the customer's situation and address it accordingly. For instance, if a customer faces an unfortunate situation because of a faulty product, support operators would need to be delicate and gentle, very different from someone who is merely asking for instructions on maintaining the product.
6. It helps in giving the answers they need.
A significant advantage of having emotional intelligence in customer service is that you can give customers what they need rather than an all-around. The average consumer is not very patient and wants to get the right information quickly on the first try. Hence, your business is walking a tightrope when it comes to satisfying customers.
The key is to leverage emotional intelligence to decipher just what the customer needs and give just the right amount of information. If the information you provide is too little or too much, you risk losing a customer to a competitor because that's the next place they'll go to to have their questions answered.
7. It encourages cooperation.
Although every business aims to deliver instant answers to customers' queries, there might be certain situations where delays become inevitable. However, customers expect businesses to respond to their queries within an hour. So in case an operator isn't able to provide a quick response to the customer, especially to an uncooperative one, then it can turn out to be a nightmare.
Though it is a common scenario for every support operator to come across such customers once in a while, dealing with them without losing their cool is quite a challenge. That's because such customers don't focus on getting a solution, and they want to make you feel guilty. Although there is no one way to deal with such uncooperative customers, talking to them the right way can help a lot.
Emotional intelligence isn't just knowing your own emotions, but being able to understand those of others. Moreover, you need to know how to derive productive results based on them. Skilled live chat representatives possess an understanding of these customer emotions. Hence, they initiate a conversation with them in a way that it encourages cooperation.
Even though external variables and factors pique customer interest, customers consciously look for an emotional aspect in their interaction with companies. Many consumers base future buying decisions on whether an exchange was emotionally fulfilling. Therefore, it is important your support operators focus on building emotional intelligence skills that improve your Net Promoter Score.
Jason Grills is a senior technical writer with ProProfs Chat.