Service Desk
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of an IT support call, you know that it’s not always the most pleasant experience. People are frustrated and you’re trying to help them get through their problem as quickly as possible.
In a fast-paced and constantly-connected world, it’s more important than ever for businesses to foster a culture of emotional intelligence among their employees. And nowhere is this more important than on the front lines of customer service, where a company’s ability to meet the needs and expectations of its clients can make or break its reputation.
In this post, we’ll explore how emotional intelligence can be used to bring positivity and creativity to even the most difficult-to-resolve issues. We’ll also talk about the importance of approaching service issues with an engineering mindset. Lastly, we’ll take a look at the power of a smile—and how it can help us accelerate successful outcomes when we’re talking with customers.
Emotionally intelligent IT support is solution-oriented
It can be difficult to manage a service desk and keep everyone happy all the time. With emotional intelligence, you can better understand and control your own emotions, as well as the emotions of those around you. This can lead to a more positive work environment and improved customer satisfaction.
With emotional intelligence, team members can better communicate with each other and work together more effectively. This leads to faster resolutions and happier customers.
When managing a service desk, it’s important to be able to understand and relate to the people you’re working with. By showing empathy and being responsive to their needs, you can build trust and credibility. This will make it easier to resolve issues and keep everyone satisfied. Emotional intelligence informs a customer service ethos.
Overall, emotional intelligence is essential for running a successful IT service desk. By understanding and managing the emotions of yourself and those around you, you can create a positive work environment, improve communication, and resolve issues more efficiently.
How to improve emotional intelligence
If you manage an IT service desk, you know that a big part of the job is managing people’s emotions. Dealing with upset customers or angry users can be a challenge, and it’s important to have a team that is emotionally intelligent.
So how can you improve the emotional intelligence of your service desk team? Here are a few tips:
1. Encourage open communication
Make sure your team members feel comfortable communicating with each other, and with you. Encourage them to share their concerns and ideas openly.
2. Encourage collaboration
Working together as a team will help your team members to understand each other better and build trust. Encourage them to collaborate on projects and brainstorm solutions together.
3. Teach empathy
One of the most important skills for emotional intelligence is empathy. Teach your team members how to put themselves in another person’s shoes, and how to understand and respond to their feelings.
4. Model emotional intelligence yourself
As the manager, you set the tone for your team. If you want your team to be emotionally intelligent, model that behavior yourself. Be aware of your own emotions and reactions, and try to lead by example.
The role of emotional intelligence in customer service
Your IT service desk is the first line of defense when it comes to dealing with customer service issues. And while it’s important to have knowledgeable and technically proficient staff, it’s just as important to have staff who are emotionally intelligent.
Why is emotional intelligence important in customer service? When customers are experiencing technical problems, they can often become frustrated, angry, or even hostile. If your IT service desk staff are not empathetic or have a customer service ethos, they may not be able to handle these situations effectively. This can lead to customers feeling even more frustrated, and may even result in them taking their business elsewhere.
On the other hand, if your IT service desk staff are emotionally intelligent, they’ll be better equipped to deal with customer service issues in a way that leaves the customer feeling satisfied. They’ll be able to de-escalate situations, empathize with the customer’s frustration, and ultimately help resolve the issue.
So if you want your IT service desk to be truly effective, don’t forget about the importance of emotional intelligence!
How to implement emotional intelligence in your IT service desk
In order to implement emotional intelligence in your IT service desk, you will need to:
1. Train your staff in emotional intelligence techniques
2. Encourage your staff to use these techniques with customers
3. Lead by example and model emotional intelligence yourself
Training your staff in emotional intelligence techniques: You can’t hire a smile, but you can train your staff in emotional intelligence techniques that will help them to better understand and relate to customers. By teaching your staff how to read body language, understand tone of voice, and how to ask the right questions, you can help them to diffuse difficult situations, receive the essential information needed to address a customer’s needs and goals, and ultimately build better relationships with customers.
Encouraging your staff to use these techniques with customers: Positivity is vital for business success. Positive outcomes are generated by positive energy, which means that employees need to be able to maintain a positive and solution-oriented attitude when dealing with negative situations or difficult customers. Once your staff has been trained in emotional intelligence, it is important to encourage them to use these techniques with customers. This can be done by providing regular feedback on their interactions, as well as opportunities for practice. Additionally, create a culture of open communication where employees feel comfortable sharing both positive and negative feedback with each other.
You want your team members to have an engineering mindset – this means approaching service issues as if they were solving a problem in their day job—by thinking critically about the issue and coming up with a solution that works for everyone involved.
Leading by example and modeling emotional intelligence yourself: As the leader of the IT service desk, it is important that you lead by example and model emotional intelligence yourself. This means being aware of your own emotions and reactions, as well as those of others around you. It also means creating an environment where everyone feels safe expressing their emotions openly and working together to resolve conflict constructively.
Your IT support team is the first point of contact for many of your customers. In fact, they can make or break your relationship with them.
Combining the power of emotional intelligence and an engineering mindset is key to building long lasting relationships with clients. Treat each customer as if you were trying to build something together that works perfectly for their needs—and make sure they know how much you care about their success with your product or service!
IT support is a challenging role, but it doesn’t have to be. At Astreya, we recruit, train, and reinforce our staff with emotional intelligence techniques and the engineering mindset in our onboarding and operational processes. Discover how we can customize your service desk needs with Astreya Service Desk.