Many jobs, whether you’re a copywriter, coal miner, or painter, require you to interact with people. However, client-facing roles such as waiters, secretaries or doctors have much greater demands placed on them when it comes to these social interactions. Another highly demanding client-facing role is that of the telemarketer.
In this blog, we’ll discuss a few specific relational challenges telemarketers face, and how a high EQ can improve their interactions with leads.
The relational challenges facing telemarketers
Whether you’re looking at B2C or B2B telemarketing, telemarketers face a number of challenges in their engagements with leads.
For example, in most cases of B2C telemarketing, telemarketers often start the interaction on the back foot. Leads have become jaded by their previous interactions with poorly trained, script-driven telemarketers or extremely annoying robocallers trying to sell them something they don’t need.
Many marketers also depend on or are required to use scripts when interacting with a lead, which can make them sound impersonal. Telemarketing KPIs that are focused on quantity, not quality, also affect a telemarketer’s interactions.
There needs to be an emphasis on EQ to address these and other telemarketing challenges.
What is EQ?
Emotional Intelligence (EI) was brought into the mainstream by author and researcher Daniel Goleman, who continued the work of researchers Peter Salavoy and John Mayer. EI refers to “the capacity to be aware of, control and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.”
Emotional Quotient (EQ), the metric by which EI is measured, has become the more commonly accepted shorthand for EI, in a similar way that IQ is used to refer to intelligence.
Very Well Mind defines the five elements of emotional intelligence:
- Self-Awareness: Self-awareness, or the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions, is a critical part of emotional intelligence. Beyond just recognising your emotions, however, is being aware of the effect of your own actions, moods, and emotions of other people.
- Self-Regulation: In addition to being aware of your own emotions and the impact you have on others, emotional intelligence requires you to be able to regulate and manage your emotions. This doesn't mean putting emotions on lock-down and hiding your true feelings — it simply means waiting for the right time, place, and avenue to express your emotions. Self-regulation is all about expressing your emotions appropriately.
Social Skills: Being able to interact well with others is another important aspect of emotional intelligence. True emotional understanding involves more than just understanding your own emotions and the feelings of others - you also need to be able to put this information to work in your daily interactions and communications.
Empathy: Empathy, or the ability to understand how others are feeling, is absolutely critical to emotional intelligence. But this involves more than just being able to recognize the emotional states of others.It also involves your responses to people based on this information.
Motivation: Intrinsic motivation also plays a key role in emotional intelligence. People who are emotionally intelligent are motivated by things beyond mere external rewards like fame, money, recognition, and acclaim.
How does each of these elements help telemarketers?
- Self-Awareness: As a telemarketer, your level of self-awareness is critical to ensuring that negative past interactions do not affect future engagements with leads, and that you are able to navigate the changing emotions that may occur within yourself.
- Self-Regulation: While engaged in an interaction, a lead may not always respond positively to you reaching out to them. If an interaction is not going as smoothly as you hoped, it’s vital that you be able to recognise any negative emotions that you may have so that you can still engage with a lead in a professional and courteous manner.
- Social Skills: Social skills refers to the telemarketers ability to process the emotional information they are getting, and responding accordingly. For example, if a lead says something that is meant as feedback, you should have the social skills to understand that this is something you need to discuss, instead of brushing it aside.
- Empathy: Connected to social skills is empathy. Telemarketers must be able to recognise the emotions of their leads, understand what those emotions would feel like, and then apply it. Without empathy, one cannot apply their social skills accordingly.
- Motivation: Healthy internal motivation is necessary for telemarketers. A telemarketer who is solely driven by selfish, external motivators will not deliver an authentic customer experience and can actually damage your brand. This is a very real risk for individuals who chase quantity-based KPIs. To ensure their motivation is in the right place when engaging with a lead, a simple question telemarketers could ask themselves is simply “Am I being helpful?”.
Choose a B2B telemarketing partner that understands the importance of EQ
GCL is a B2B telemarketing and lead generation agency that has operated for over 30 years. GCL understands that an empathic, EQ-driven approach is necessary for helping both our leads and our clients. This is why we don’t use scripts and connect with our leads in their own language.
If you’d like to know more about EQ and how it can help your business grow, be sure to take a look at our ebook Connect With Your Leads Using EQ. If you’re interested in finding out more about our services, you can contact us today.
