A TRUE Story how emotional intelligence and empathy works
I was at a meeting located at a 5 star hotel. During the break I heard yelling at the front desk. A customer and employee were having an intense discussion. I walked over and said 3 questions to both the customer and employee. I used powerful empathy skills to connect with both of them.
In one minute both were calm and discussing the problem. Wouldn’t you enjoy these skills to bring calm to your employees discussions? Wouldn’t it be amazing if all your employees could communicate functionally to increase efficiency, effectiveness and employee/customer retention.
Emotional Intelligence and Empathy Skills
Emotional Intelligence using business communication skills can be very lucrative for your business. These tips will be centered around the Empathy principal of Emotional Intelligence. Empathy skills can build trust with customers quickly and easily. What might take weeks or months to build a relationship with your customer may take seconds and minutes with empathy skills.
The other side of empathy skills is the relationship and connection empathy can build with management and employees. Without empathy skills your company can stay in the stone age of sales and customer service. With empathy skills your company can run smoother and with much less stress.
Several Types of Empathy
In these tips you will learn how to use the different types of empathy. Empathy is a deep understanding what someone may be experiencing. The types of empathy are self, silent and verbal empathy. There are several components of empathy discussed in this series of articles.
What some people use as empathy is not authentic empathy and can ruin a business relationship. The next tip will center around self empathy, which is the root of all proactive communication. Hopefully it is accomplished before any interaction takes place.
One of the two principals of empathy is FOCUS.
When we are listening to another, the focus stays on them. Focusing is important to build the business relationship as it demonstrates to the speaker that the person listening is authentic and cares about what is being said. The focus stays on that person during the initial conversation. Stay away from offering advice or your stories to continue the relationship and. trust building.
You may contribute stories and advice later, only after you ask if they want to hear it. If you don’t ask and then tell the suggestion, you may lose the connection. Only after the customer has been really understood, do you want to start expressing your thoughts.
Intention, the 2ND principal
Setting the intention of your conversation is simple, yet so powerful for successful communications. It helps you to stay focused even if the speaker is irate or very intense. You want to set your intention not to manipulate to get your needs met but to want to understand the speaker. Setting your intention before the conversation will help you enjoy the interaction.
Empathy Skills are the most Powerful Business Skills
Knowing and practicing “real” empathy skills will help your business life become more profitable and easier. Customer service and Sales is always easier when there is trust. Again empathy skills build the trust that you need. Empathy may also be used for other business challenges, such as in business meetings, manager-employee problems, customer service and/or employee mediation.
You may choose not to use the empathic communication model and continue to have communication situations or learn empathy skills and watch your business soar, employee satisfaction develop and have happier customers.