We live in a world full of hyper-connected devices and advanced AI systems. These technologies have a lot of IQ but are severely lacking in EQ, or emotional intelligence. How can enterprises, and particularly sales teams, leverage emotional intelligence solutions to improve B2B remote conversations? Let’s explore.
Why emotional intelligence matters to B2B sales
Emotional intelligence is a key component to sales conversations with your customers. In fact, it’s often more important than factual knowledge on products and services. EQ systems can help improve remote B2B sales conversations by being able to sense the emotional state of the customer, learn context and tailor conversation to customer needs.
By nature, human beings are not exclusively thinking beings—they are also emotional. And emotions can drive human behavior. Organizations that understand their customers’ emotional state have historically provided more memorable experiences and built longer-lasting trust and loyalty. Regarding loyalty, research by the Harvard business school has demonstrated that even as little as a 5 percent increase in loyalty can increase profits by a minimum of 25 percent.
Emotional intelligence is now a business priority
Because of its significant impact on customer loyalty and engagement—both of which affect a company’s bottom line—EQ is a major business priority today. To deliver on that priority, companies must focus on the interactions that are important to customers and on the way frontline employees handle those interactions. At its core, emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand and manage our emotions while recognizing how they influence others’ emotions. To improve EQ on the enterprise level, organizations must first build emotional intelligence on the individual level.
Delivering EQ in an increasingly digital world
While it’s clear that EQ is a relevant part of business success, today’s virtual environment has made it more difficult for remote workers to successfully apply EQ than in previous face-to-face interactions. Here, technology in the form of emotion AI can help companies transform their customer—and employee—experience by reducing the complexity in reading emotional cues and building rapport in remote sales conversations. How? By augmenting sales team capabilities with emotion AI-enabled engagement platforms.
How emotion AI drives higher EQ
Emotion AI, also known as affective computing, is a type of artificial intelligence that detects emotions. These types of machines are able to understand both the cognitive and emotive channels of human communication. In this way, they can detect, interpret and respond appropriately to both verbal and non-verbal signals.
Sentiment text analysis, or tonal analysis, is part of emotion AI—and it´s among the key sales tech solutions now in the market. But in the broader context of emotional intelligence, sentiment analysis is only part of a much more complex equation. Humans use a lot of non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions, gestures and body language to communicate their emotions. In designing EQ systems for video meetings, integrating data from all these sources has historically been a challenge.
EQ challenges in video engagements
According to Forrester, 54 percent of sales reps say that losing the ability to meet with clients in person has hurt their ability to meet quota. At the same time, Gartner reports that only 23 percent of B2B sales reps believe they are equally effective selling virtually as they are in a live, onsite setting. What’s keeping sellers from connecting with virtual customers? The ability to read EQ.
Key factors impacting EQ in virtual B2B sales meetings:
Sellers must be able to gauge remote buyer engagement—without the “magic” of face-to-face non-verbal communication—and adjust their tactics to create a positive experience
The ability to identify critical customer moments that impact the decision-making process of the buyer
The ability to generate empathetic conversations based on the correct understanding of buyer emotions to build rapport
“The substantive volume of digital interactions from conversations provides a unique opportunity for organizations to be more effective and provide better experiences for their buyers and customers using contextual digital intelligence for conversational insights.”
Mark Smith, CEO and Chief Research Officer at Ventana Research
Bridging the video EQ gap
With these factors in mind, Uniphore has developed the industry’s first enterprise-level EQ-based sales solution for driving positive, engaging and trusted customer interactions and outcomes.
Unlike previous, limited-EQ platforms, Uniphore’s Q for Sales solution looks at a video source much like a human would and detects how sales team members are being perceived by their customers, the tone of their language and voice, what participants are saying, the level of audience engagement and more—all in real-time.
As the industry’s first real-time EQ meeting assistant, Q for Sales offers:
Real-Time Emotion AI Assistance: Live analysis to help sellers “read the room,” sense emotional cues and improve engagement during virtual meetings
Meeting EQ: Meeting playbacks, contextual key moments, engagement and sentiment trends for all members of your meeting
Deal EQ: Opportunity-level insights, customer sentiment and engagement timelines and key moments from first meeting to closed-won
Key Moments: Real-time analytics that show conversation highlights and lowlights, including moments of peak and weak audience engagement so the presenter can self-correct
Team EQ + Improve: Personal EQ Performance Dashboard for Self-Coaching and onboarding to improve ramp time. Q provides sellers measurable EQ performance analytics, conversation statistics and a post-meeting analysis and next-best actions on every meeting.
Integrations: Q for Sales works seamlessly with major virtual meeting platforms, CRMs and calendar platforms
“With Q for Sales, Uniphore introduces next-generation digital innovation that helps sales organizations be more impactful in the selling process by adapting to emotional queues of buyers from video, and inevitably for the broader enterprise and organizational readiness.”
Mark Smith, CEO and Chief Research Officer at Ventana Research
Reimagining B2B sales with Q for Sales
For B2B companies, gaining deeper buyer insights is the secret to improving conversion. In today’s complex—and often uncertain—business climate, these insights drive much-needed empathy and buyer confidence. With Q for Sales, sales teams can mine these insights from each unique customer engagement. Companies that leverage these next-generation B2B emotional intelligence capabilities will have a considerable competitive advantage over their peers in meeting today’s customers’ expectations.