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Does Your Brand Have Emotional Intelligence?Jun 10, 08 | 1:58 am
What Is Emotional Intelligence (EQ); Let Alone BRAND Emotional Intelligence? A lot of research has been done in the field of EQ for many years. It's only more recently been brought to the forefront by leading experts-to name a few: Daniel Goleman in Working with Emotional Intelligence, Robert E. Kelley in How to Be a Star at Work and Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves in The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book. So, what is Emotional Intelligence anyway? According to Daniel Goleman: "The capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships."
Have you ever experienced a situation as a customer with an employee (of the company you were doing business with) who was just totally unaware? The employee didn't and couldn't even recognize their own emotions as they occurred? You could see it in their face and body language. And as they couldn't acknowledge their emotions they experienced within themselves, it was impossible for them to manage their emotions as they interacted with you; let alone aware of the subtle or overt cues from you so they could respond in a positive and productive way to your needs. These types of situations are further intensified when you experience the same thing over and over with a company with whom you are doing business, until finally you say "ENOUGH! I can't take it anymore!" Well, think about this. The majority of customers (and I bet you're one of them) WANT TO DO BUSINESS with the brands you frequent; but companies and their employees just give you REASONS NOT to! Take the airline industry for example. If more airlines focused on hiring and developing their people for emotional intelligence, they would be a lot more productive and have a lot more satisfied customers. One of my recent experiences involved a flight cancellation. It was due to a mechanical issue and lack of availability of a replacement aircraft and alternate airline flight to my destination city. Although disappointed, all my fellow passengers were eager to get rebooked as we stampeded like a herd of cattle to the gate agent desk. As I was standing in line, I overheard one of the gate agents say that our luggage was being forwarded to the destination city anyway. I glanced at another passenger. We raised our eyebrows in unison. We were commanded to stay behind without our luggage. No "say-so" in the matter. A lot of customers scheduled for this flight didn't even live in this city (including ‘MOI'). The thought of our luggage being sent in advance was absurd! As you can imagine, we all began to question the logic. Someone asked, "How can you ship our luggage if you don't have a plane to fly?" Obviously, it made no sense whatsoever. The situation brewed like a magical potion in the pot. The ‘herd' grumbled and expressed further displeasure with comments like, "That's B___ S___! "You can't possibly be serious!" and so forth. It became very apparent that this gate agent was irritated with our complaints as she suddenly yelled out, "I don't appreciate your tone with me. I expect to be treated with respect!" She was so absorbed in her own emotions that she could no longer recognize her lack of self-awareness and put herself in our multitude of shoes; let alone manage the situation productively. My fellow passengers fumed as this gate agent refused to question the original information received about our luggage. We pleaded with her to reconfirm. Needless to say, we were outraged with her behavior and lack of sensitivity. The gate agent next her was very aware and tried to smooth things over. It was he who picked up the phone for clarification on the luggage situation and after further investigation...he gently whispered in her ear, "We received inaccurate information". He then proceeded to inform us our luggage would be at baggage claim so and so. Oh, I must say, his colleague was not pleased. She was so self-absorbed and unaware of her emotions and actions. She just huffed! When I look back on this situation-it is so amusing to me now. A lot of goodwill was lost to customers doing business with this airline because of this one employee's lack of emotional intelligence. Multiply this every time it is experienced again and again with the same company and their employees who lack the basic skills of emotional intelligence, which by the way can be learned. Yes EQ is a learnable skill. We can train the brain, unlike IQ (our capacity to learn) and personality, which form around the age of 5 and remain virtually unchanged over the course of our life. So, that brings us to the question, what is Brand Emotional Intelligence? Brand Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the extent, to which your organization acknowledges, understands and manages your employees and customers so as to enhance the perceived value of your brand. The concept of Brand EQ was derived by The Brand Ascension Group LLC (based on the extensive research by Daniel Goleman on Emotional Intelligence) which demonstrates there is more to an individual's success than just being "smart." Emotional Intelligence is an intangible part of each of us that tunes into personal and social nuances about emotions, and when used effectively can drive actions and decisions that deliver positive results. It is a significant part of personal and professional success for people at all levels in business. The same concept of individual emotional intelligence holds true for the collective emotions within your organization and how they affect your customers impacting their emotions and perceptions created as a result of their experience with your brand (your employees). Your customers (who are human beings) constantly perceive information. They take in thousands of bits of information through all their senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, smell and intuition. They process this information, form opinions and judgments, and make decisions based on this data. Being fully conscious of the knowledge of how your customers' constantly perceive your brand can better enable you to consistently create positively, memorable experiences for them. What we take in How we respond
Internal Brand Emotional Awareness - is your organization's ability to accurately perceive the varied and collective emotions, behaviors and perceptions of your employees and how these drive customer perceptions. Do you stay abreast of how your employees tend to respond to specific situations and people, and how these positively or negatively impact the Brand Promise? Internal Brand Relationship Management - is your organization's ability to use awareness of the collective emotions, behaviors and perceptions, and harness the hearts and minds of your employees to positively direct their behavior. Do you manage employees effectively to drive the "desired culture," reinforcing the behaviors that deliver on your Brand Promise? External Brand Emotional Awareness - is your organization's ability to readily recognize and assess the emotions and behaviors of customers, understanding what drives customer perception; and what customers are thinking and feeling and anticipating their wants and desires. Do you investigate what drives customers' opinions and judgments about your brand to understand their perception and if it is congruent with your Brand Promise? External Brand Relationship Management - is your organization's ability to use the awareness and assessment of the emotions of your customers to internally and externally manage, direct and adapt quickly to drive increases in positive customer perceptions. Do you stay on top of what it takes to create positively, memorable customer experiences congruent with your Brand Promise to create increased brand equity and perceived value? If you answered NO to any of the questions, then your organization has missed some key opportunities to build Brand Emotional Intelligence. Visit www.BrandAscension.com for more information and download (for a limited time only through 30th June 2008) a complimentary copy of our Brand EQ ElevationSM Assessment tool. Click Here Brand EQ Elevation assessment is a straightforward, practical tool your organization can use to build brand success on the foundational concepts of emotional intelligence. About the Author Carol Chapman is Principal and co-Founder of The Brand Ascension Group, an experiential consulting and training firm that specializes in brand perception. As an HR executive, entrepreneur and brand culture creative, Carol is committed to organizations who want to achieve transformational and sustainable brand success through strategic, internal branding practices. As co-developer of pioneering brand elevation methodologies (Brand DNA-Dimensional Nucleic Assets® and Brand ElevationSM STATSISM), she has helped organizations create consistent, relevant and distinctive experiences that engage, inspire and win their employees and customers for life; not to mention position their brands for extraordinary growth. For 30 years, Carol has cultivated extensive experience and proven success in leading businesses through significant challenges involving organizational transition, brand development, revitalizations and integrations; leadership development, cultural alignment and mergers and acquisitions. Having held several executive management positions including Vice President, Human Resources Asia Pacific based in Singapore for one of the largest hotel companies in the world - Six Continents Hotels (now Inter-Continental Hotels Group), she has learned that the most successful and sustainable brand organizations harness the energies of their people. What is most notable is that their brands come to life through the power of this most cherished asset. They cultivate this asset in consistent, relevant and distinctive ways so as to deliver emotionally charged experiences for all audiences. As a speaker at corporate conferences, trade association events, and webinars on internal branding and author of Getting Your Employees on The Brand Wagon e-book, she is helping to create a paradigm shift in the way organizations cultivate sustainable brand success through their employees. For more information contact: The Brand Ascension Group
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