Have you ever attended a high school reunion and noticed that it isn’t the class valedictorian who’s gone on to be most successful (however you define that) in their post-graduate life?  That’s a great illustration of how a person’s raw intelligence is a poor indicator of his or her future potential.  Psychologists have recently shown that another kind of intelligence is a better indicator of success. It is called emotional intelligence – the intelligence of how well a person understands him or herself and how well they interact with others.  In the Support Center, emotional intelligence is mandatory for successful customer interactions and teamwork.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability that each of us has developed that allow us to understand our emotions and how they affect our behavior, and how we get along with other people.  Emotional Intelligence has more bearing on our success than our innate smartness or IQ.  In fact, studies have shown that when comparing star performers to average workers, approximately 85% of the difference can be attributed to emotional intelligence competencies.¹ 

The good news is that, unlike IQ which we are born with, emotional intelligence can be learned and developed.  With motivation, practice and some helpful feedback, you can increase your emotional intelligence.  In this article, we’ll discover some of the ways we can increase our EI as Support Professionals.

As popularized by Daniel Goleman in a series of books on the subject, the spectrum of competencies that comprise Emotional Intelligence can be grouped in four areas.  The first two areas are concerned with personal competencies; the second two, with social competencies.  They are Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management.  Let’s examine each area of competency and how what that competency means in a Support Center environment.

Area One: Self-Awareness

Self-awareness encompasses several competencies: our ability to identify our emotional state and to recognize how our behavior affects others around us.  It is also our level of self esteem, and the ability to discern how other people impact our emotional states. 

It is of primary importance that we be aware of our own emotions.  We are not like Mr. Spock, the congenitally emotionless Vulcan from Star Trek adventures; as human beings, we experience a wide range of emotions daily.  It is the emotionally intelligent individual who recognizes those emotions and doesn’t ignore them.  Mature adults acknowledge an emotion, and then consciously choose an appropriate way of expressing it – or not.   We must recognize that our emotions, as observed through our behaviors, affect people around us, as well as how other people’s behavior conversely affects us.

Emotions are contagious.  Thanks to evolutionary wisdom, it is the open loop system of our emotional brain that allows people to share emotions and influence other’s moods.  This is the mechanism that allows a mother to soothe a crying child, or for a giggle to spread throughout a room full of people.  I once knew a receptionist who greeted everyone coming into the building with a friendly hello, called each one by name, and made small talk.  You could see folks approach the receptionist’s desk; many were sullen or self-absorbed until they met up with Albert, the receptionist.  Almost no one was able to suppress a smile after encountering Albert’s enthusiastic and positive greeting.  His mood was contagious. 

An interesting exercise in Self-Awareness is to keep a log of your emotions during the day.  As a Support Center professional, you can keep a sheet of paper at your desk as a “tick sheet” of your emotions.  Note what kind of calls irritate or upset you, which team members give you a lift after talking to them – or the opposite, who makes you feel worse after an interaction, what tasks give you the most satisfaction, etc.  Reviewing the log at the end of the day provides a map of the day’s emotions.  Think about your behavior that surrounded each emotion and whether you chose the best response. 

Area Two:  Self-Management

The emotional competencies of Self-Management are all about the behaviors you choose in response to your emotions.  They include the abilities to embrace change if the situation demands it, to manage stress, to tolerate frustrations and to choose a positive attitude, and to take initiative and drive ourselves to achieve our goals.

In the Support Center, Self-Management plays an important role.  As analysts, we need to be aware of our own emotions and moods, yet choose behaviors that are conducive to positive customer and team-member interactions.  When you encounter an angry or upset caller, do you get angry right back, or do you control your response and effectively handle the customer using the LEAF plus 1 technique?  (For information on LEAF plus 1, see our article on How to Handle Angry or Upset Customers at www.krconsulting.com/articles/angrycustomer.pdf )  Self-management is all about self-control.

If I’m in a bad mood from a tough call, it is best if I excuse myself from the next call, take a quick walk to the restroom or break room to compose myself and then return to the phones with a clearer perspective.  That type of self-care is emotionally intelligent.

As a team member, it’s important to understand how moods and emotions affect those around us.  Fortunately, positive emotions are more easily shared than negative ones, so a negative person is less destructive than a positive person is constructive.  Choosing carefully how to express your emotions is a mature trait.

Area Three:  Social Awareness

How aware are you of the emotions that others are feeling?  Can you pick up the mood in a room upon walking into it?  Are you aware of the political mood of your organization and can you choose the best course of action accordingly?  Do you use empathy to show that you care about other’s emotions?  Are you committed to serving the customer and your teammates?  These are the competencies of Social Awareness.

Remember that the first two competencies have to do with knowing yourself, and the second two concern your interpersonal skills.  Social Awareness is the first of the interpersonal skills, and a very important one for the Support Center Professional. 

If emotions are contagious, we must be very conscious of sending out positive emotions to our customers.  In the Support Center, we set the stage for a positive customer encounter by our phone greeting.  Conveying a cheerful and upbeat tone in our greeting is the first step in spreading our good mood into the phone conversation.  A great greeting is an act of self-preservation – you hope your cheeriness will be contagious and a positive mood will pervade the entire interaction.

Empathy is a skill used by the emotionally intelligent individual.  If you don’t use empathy in a customer service environment, expect the worst!  Empathy is the quickest way to get an emotional person out of their limbic system (the part of the brain that controls emotion) into the left pre-frontal lobe of their neocortex, which governs rational responses to emotions.  Only when a person is functioning out of the rational brain can you begin to solve problems with him or her.  Empathy allows you to acknowledge the emotion without wallowing in it with the affected person.  Statements such as “I can see how upset you are about that.  How awful!” let the customer know that you understand how they are feeling.  After a simple acknowledgement of the emotion, the customer is satisfied and is able to move into problem solving with you.  Social Awareness allows us to use empathy effectively.

Area Four: Relationship Management

The last cluster of competencies has to do with how we get along with others, how we handle conflict, how we influence and persuade others, how we consider the feelings of others as we interact with them.  Relationship management is all about team work and how well we play together in our sandbox!

Team work really counts at the Help Desk or Tech Support Center.  We rely on each other for expertise, to help us tussle with a complex problem, to gain perspective on internal issues, to have fun with – the team is what makes our job enjoyable!  How well are you interacting with others?  Are you aware of how your emotions influence what you say to your team mates?  Before you act, do you consider how your actions might affect your team or individuals in it?  Do you make time to show that you care about your teammates, by taking time for small talk, getting to know about other’s personal lives?

One good way to make sure you are managing relationships effectively is to get a buddy to give you feedback on your interactions.  You can offer to do this mutually – each one can observe the other’s behavior in groups and privately share what they observed afterwards.  Talk about your actions. What really was your intention, and was the outcome as effective as you wished?  Did you promote the relationship or detract from it?  Was it politically astute or damaging?  Your buddy can offer some tremendously helpful suggestions that can advance your career.

Emotional Intelligence: Your key to success

It’s not your personality type, it’s not your intelligence quotient, and it’s not the university degrees or professional licenses that you acquire that have the greatest influence on your future success.  It’s your Emotional Intelligence – the degree to which you understand your own emotions and how well you interact with others – that makes the difference between good and great support professionals.  Fortunately, we have the ability to grow and develop these factors in ourselves.  The greatest among us will be those who become emotional intelligent.

Kristin Robertson, President of KR Consulting, Inc., is a consultant to the Help Desk and Technical Support profession.  She helps companies increase the efficiency of their support center, save money, and increase their customer loyalty.  As both a consultant and trainer, she has worked with companies such as 7-Eleven, Southwest Airlines, Hewlett Packard, Prodigy Communications and CompUSA.  Kristin can be reached at 817-577-7030, or krisrob@krconsulting.com.  Her website, www.krconsulting.com, contains many free resources and articles for support professionals.

Notes:

1.       See Daniel Goleman, “Emotional Intelligence: A Theory of Performance” in The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace, eds. Cary Cherniss and Daniel Goleman (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001)

Bibliography:

Goleman, Daniel, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ (New York: Bantam Books, 1995) 

Order it from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553375067/qid%3D1061384375/sr%3D2-2/ref%3Dsr%5F2%5F2/002-6968189-4306439/krconsulting-20/002-6968189-4306439

Goleman, Boyatzis, McKee, Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002) 

Order it from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/157851486X/qid%3D1061384375/sr%3D2-3/ref%3Dsr%5F2%5F3/002-6968189-4306439/krconsulting-20/002-6968189-4306439

Goleman, Daniel, Working with Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books, 1998)

Order it from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553378589/qid=1061384375/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-6968189-4306439?v=glance&s=books/krconsulting-20

LeDoux, Joseph, The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life (New York: Touchstone, 1996)

Order it from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684836599/qid%3D1061384771/sr%3D2-2/ref%3Dsr%5F2%5F2/002-6968189-4306439/krconsulting-20/002-6968189-4306439

Wheelan, Susan A., Creating Effective Teams: A Guide for Members and Leaders (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1999)

Order it at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0761918175/qid=1061384884/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-6968189-4306439?v=glance&s=books/krconsulting-20