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CX Education 12: How emotional intelligence helps with employee and customer experience with Sandra Thompson from Ei Evolution

Join Sandra Thompson and Heather Share as they discuss why emotional intelligence is the key to a great customer experience.

How emotional intelligence helps with employee and customer experience with Sandra Thompson from Ei Evolution
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About this episode

Emotional intelligence is a valuable way to build relationships with employees, increase motivation, and improve performance. But it also significantly boosts the employee experience — directly impacting the customer experience.

In this episode of CX Education, our host Heather Share welcomes Sandra Thompson, the founder of Ei Evolution. They talk about the importance of emotional intelligence in business, why trust is critical in the workplace, and how a good employee experience leads to a good customer experience.

Image for Sandra Thompson, Founder | Ei Evolution

Guest Speaker

Sandra Thompson, Founder | Ei Evolution

Sandra is the first Goleman Emotional Intelligence coach in the UK. She’s worked in the customer and employee experience space for 17 years and believes that emotional intelligence is the key to memorable and meaningful customer and employee experiences. Sandra trains, coaches, and consults in these areas; she also teaches People Management and Leadership at a variety of places, including Eton College.

Sandra gave her first TEDx in 2020 and has staged events like the Ei Evolution Summit with special guests, including Dr. Daniel Goleman. Sandra runs an Applied Customer Experience and Emotional Intelligence course bringing neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science to life in CX & EX, and she’s launching a new EX course in Spring 2023.

Image for Heather Share, Product Adoption Manager | Sinch

Host

Heather Share, Product Adoption Manager | Sinch

Heather Share creates a visual landscape of possibilities for global businesses navigating ever-growing customer needs.

20 years of creating best-fit solutions in the SaaS platform world firmly places Heather as a leader in the space who is ideally positioned to help businesses achieve growth plans for retention, loyalty, and new business.

As a Product Adoption Manager at Sinch, Heather guides clients through emerging channels growing in popularity worldwide and promotes the importance of a conversational strategy.

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Key insights

Emotional intelligence helps you understand and recognize emotions. That’s why it’s so critical for both personal life and business. Sandra explains, “The EI evolution is about trying to help people grasp what emotional intelligence is and to invest in that skill. Because I think all of us know people we like to work with and those we don’t like so much, and we know where we are productive and where we do amazing work. And I know that it will come down to, very often, emotional connection, and that’s really what emotional intelligence is all about.”

Trust is mandatory in business. When there’s no trust in a company, there’s no mutual understanding or motivation. Sandra says, “The result of a manager not giving you the space, questioning, checking in, as it has been known in the hybrid environment, means that the employee knows the boss doesn’t trust them. And I don’t know about any of you, but if you know someone who does not trust you — how do you behave? You behave very differently than if you have someone supportive, trusting, encouraging, empowering, and all those amazing things.”

Emotional intelligence helps create a good employee experience, which leads to an even better customer experience. Sandra explains, “They have created a meaningful, never-forget moment for a customer by being able to do something important to them. And the great thing about this is that the customer not only feels great, but the employee feels even more amazing, and when they share their story, there’s a ripple effect, and there’s the opportunity for everyone else to want to do something to feel like that.”

Episode highlights

Managers need to learn emotional intelligence

“Many managers are demanding that staff have to come into the office just for them to feel more calm and more secure. It’s nonsense. Managers need to learn the skill of emotional intelligence; to be honest, fair, and reasonable to their hardworking teams. And honestly, if you really don’t trust a person, why did you recruit them in the first place?”

Listen to your customers with all of your senses

“We have got to listen with all of our senses, and we have got to be able to respond to all of the nuances that these amazing customers give us. We’ve got to do that. We have got to ensure that the feedback customers give us, we do something with it. And finally, within an organization, we take comments from our customers as a gift, not as a threat.”

Empathy is not the same as emotional intelligence

“Empathy and the whole idea of walking in someone’s shoes or standing in someone else’s shoes; it’s not enough. When you practice the skill of emotional intelligence, you become aware of your own emotions.”
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