Emotional Intelligence at the Workplace.
Leadership skills are crucial in every organization. And great leaders work on these skills all of the time. An article about Emotional Intelligence in the Call Center by Jim Iyoob referenced Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence and reminded our organization of the importance of this issue with our staff, our clients, and our client’s customers.
Here at Kelley’s we encourage and train our staff to use these 5 skills in our Call Center.
Self-Awareness:
Self awareness is having a balanced and honest view of your own personality, and an ability to interact with others confidently. Our managers look for self awareness in the hiring process and continually encourage it. A great customer service representative is aware of their voice inflection, how to address an upset caller, and how to calm a client down, take control, address the situation and relay the information appropriately.
Motivation:
What gives our customer service agents motivation? Each agent may have a slightly different answer. Basically, all our agents want to assist the caller with their issue. Kelley’s has wonderful clients. Our agents genuinely enjoy assisting them with their services.
Self-Regulation:
Well said by Jim Iyoob “Self-regulation is synonymous to self-control. When you have self-control, you will not make emotional decisions, verbally attack people, or compromise your values. Instead you will hold yourself accountable for your own thoughts and actions.” Customer service agents are required to think quick, evaluate and make decisions on call relays. Self Control is required.
Empathy:
Empathy in the call center to us means considering the caller and the clients feelings or difficulties. We address the situation and give it value. Callers want to be heard, they want to be identified with. Our agents validate, and give callers the options available to them.
Social Skills:
In the call center you can be talking to all types of people; from all ages, all income levels, with multiple languages. Social skills relating to the way people behave and interact on the phone requires our agents to adapt with each and every call.
Kelley’s is locally owned and operated in Kennewick, WA. We offer 24-hour Answering Service, Virtual Receptionist Services, Overflow, and Appointment Scheduling. Kelley’s has provided business solutions to companies small, medium and large for over 47 years: Local, Regional and nationwide.