Emotional Intelligence: How To Thrive in Customer Success

Some of the skills that are most crucial in the workplace aren’t taught in classrooms, or even offered in on-the-job training. These are known as “soft skills,” and can include things like active listening and organization. But one of the most vital and misunderstood skills might be emotional intelligence. We know that emotional intelligence is not only a highly-desirable trait for employees to have, but one that directly correlates to workplace success. Data tells us that that 90% of top performers across all industries rank high in emotional intelligence, and in a 40-year study, it was determined that emotional intelligence was 400% more powerful than IQ at predicting success.

So, where exactly does emotional intelligence fall into place when we’re talking about thriving in Customer Success? Emotional intelligence is actually one of the key disciplines of Customer Success, and it’s vital to having a Customer Success team that creates satisfied customers.?

This article will discuss:

• What is emotional intelligence, and why is it important?
• Emotional intelligence and Customer Success.
• Ways to improve our emotional intelligence.
• Ways to recognize and measure emotional intelligence.

What Is Emotional Intelligence, & Why Is It Important?

Emotional intelligence, which is also known as emotional quotient (EQ), is “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions and to handle the interpersonal relationships required when working for and with a diverse customer base.” In layman’s terms, it’s the ability to recognize, understand and manage the emotions of yourself, and of others.

Emotional intelligence matters because it means having an awareness about how emotions can dictate decisions and actions, which can then have real-world implications. For example, having a high emotional intelligence can make the difference between vastly different outcomes in a scenario.

Emotional Intelligence & Customer Success

Professionals join Customer Success from many backgrounds, and may come to the field after working in sales, customer service, and tech support, for example. While technical skills like data analysis and familiarity with a CRM can be helpful at launching a career as a Customer Success Manager, there are plenty of soft skills that are integral to thriving in Customer Success, with emotional intelligence being a key discipline.

A Customer Success professional needs to possess emotional intelligence because it can help them accomplish their main goals, which is to reduce churn, increase the value of customer contracts, and give customers the best experience possible. A Customer Success Manager with emotional intelligence will be able to effectively respond to their customers, even if they’re moody or upset, and smooth over situations with ease. They’ll also be able to do things like predict the needs of their customers and be able to manage their own emotions if situations become tense. Customer Success Managers with emotional intelligence will have patience and thoughtfulness, will be curious, and will be masterful at relationship management.

Ways To Improve Our Emotional Intelligence:

If you’re looking to improve your emotional intelligence, here are some ideas to get you started:

• Work on managing emotions: Managing our own emotions is a big part of improving emotional intelligence. To help manage your own emotions, pay close attention to how you respond to things. If you notice you can be particularly reactive to a situation, you can take a period of time before you respond to it. Also, find an outlet to manage your own stress, such as meditation, yoga, working out, or something else that you enjoy doing.?
• Seek out other perspectives: Honing emotional intelligence means also understanding the emotions of others, so it’s important to hear from people with other perspectives and opinions than yourself. This will help you see different sides of situations, and will sharpen your ability to understand other people.
• Practice active listening: Active listening can be very useful in developing emotional intelligence, because it’ll lead you to pay close attention to what others are saying, and how they’re responding to situations. You’ll start noticing how others react, and have a better handle on steering a conversation towards certain outcomes.

Ways To Recognize & Measure Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence can be tricky to measure on paper, which means it can also be difficult to measure growth in this area. We’ve identified five pillars of emotional intelligence, and how Customer Success professionals at every level can benchmark their success. We’re going to discuss two of the five pillars here: empathy and motivation.

Motivation

Motivation is the personal drive to improve and achieve, commitment to one’s goals, and the readiness to act on opportunities. Motivation is important to Customer Success because it’s the force that drives our actions, and possessing motivation will reflect in your work. Here’s what motivation might look like for different Customer Success professionals:

• For Individuals: Individual Customer Success Managers who are motivated will be willing to learn, will work with leaders to set goals, and will seek out opportunities. They’ll also be optimistic, and self-starters.
• For Senior Individual Contributors: A senior Customer Success professional who is motivated will be able to learn, but also willing to teach others. They’ll set personal goals, seek feedback, will exude optimism, and be very resilient.
• For Leaders: Leaders who are motivated will actively teach and coach, they’ll help others achieve their goals and overcome weaknesses, and look for ways to improve their team.

Empathy

Empathy is having the awareness of the needs and feelings of others, and being able to see things from their point of view. It’s relevant to Customer Success because it can help develop a better understanding of people’s situations. Here’s what empathy might look like for different Customer Success professionals:

• For Individuals: Individual Customer Success Managers who are empathetic will be able to understand other points of view, be able to take on other perspectives during a conversation, and will practice active listening.
• For Senior Individual Contributors: A senior Customer Success professional who is empathetic will be skillful at managing conversations, will understand how another person feels and what they are thinking, and will be able to leverage empathy during situations.
• For Leaders:? Leaders who are empathetic will be able to tap into that empathy in a crisis, be self-aware, and self-regulate. They’ll also reward and praise team members, provide constructive feedback, and provide mentoring and coaching.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to emotional intelligence and Customer Success. In Part Two, we’ll discuss the remaining pillars of emotional intelligence.