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In the mid-1990s, Daniel Goleman introduced the concept of EQ (Emotional intelligence). Broadly stated, emotional intelligence is the ability of a person to recognize, manage and understand their emotions as well as those of others.
Goleman stated five critical areas of emotional intelligence:
- Self-awareness identifying the state of your own emotions and how they may impact other people
- Self-regulation controlling your emotions to prevent negatively affecting others
- Socialization building rapport and creating and maintaining connections
- Empathy identifying and responding to other people’s feelings
- Motivation the drive or enthusiasm to take on or complete a task
In the world of data analytics, Goleman’s concept showed that success in our life and career are closely connected with emotional factors and not just rational criteria.
The Value of Emotional Intelligence to B2B Sales
Recently, Gartner reported that B2B sales organizations should focus on situational buyer insights to improve conversion at each stage of the customer journey. Their latest research outlines the importance of sales leaders to be conscious of the new reality of B2B buyers who demand exceptional and customized experiences across multiple channels. This requires sales teams to have the right EQ skills to lead with empathy to increase buyer confidence and drive growth.
In the same direction, new Gartner research featured in the Harvard Business Review identified that sales leaders could raise their sellers’ odds of closing high-quality, low-regret deals by 157% by making their customers feel more confident.
Empathy is the Key EQ Driver of Sales Growth
What´s the connection between driving growth and customer confidence? The answer is simple: people buy from people. Customers buy from sellers and companies they trust, and humans trust people they believe to be competent, honest and aligned with. Consequently, sales today is not about moving people through stages—it´s about maximizing the seller´s empathy and helpfulness at every touchpoint during the buyer’s journey.
Empathy is one of the key elements of Goleman’s emotional intelligence concept. To be empathetic—and, more specifically, to make sales empathetic—sales teams must understand the customer´s emotional state. When it comes to next-generation B2B sales skills, having an emotionally aware sales team is without a doubt one of the most critical factors.
Enhancing Empathy in Sales with Emotionally Intelligent AI
Artificial intelligence technology plays a central role in the B2B sales process. As it evolves, it creates more insights into buyer behavior and increases agility. In addition to providing logical data, AI is now changing B2B sales team performance expectations by adding a new layer of emotional intelligence (EQ) data.
At Uniphore, we are at the forefront of innovation in providing new emotional data to sales teams. Our multimodal emotion AI platform, Q for Sales, combines facial and speech analysis to deliver richer insights into customer emotions, providing a new layer of emotional intelligence to our industry-best conversational intelligence AI.
Q for Sales improves EQ by providing sales teams with the contextual insights they need to perform at their best. Purpose-built for B2B sales teams engaging customers over video and digital channels, Q for Sales is the only EQ-based sales solution to offer revenue teams real-time and post-call sentiment, engagement and EQ-based conversation intelligence.
At Uniphore, we are committed to helping sales teams perform at their best: Every meeting. Every deal. Every day. Q for Sales is our latest contribution to that commitment, empowering sales teams to find new ways to build rapport and show empathy to their customers.