Emotional intelligence (EQ) covers a lot of bases, but at its core, it’s about one’s ability to be aware of and control one’s emotions. So, what does that have to do with payment experiences?
A lot, actually.
Emotional intelligence is all about perceiving emotions – both yours and other people’s – reasoning with those emotions, and managing them. The result of mastery over emotions equates to an enhanced ability to influence others, have empathy, and work as a team – all integral traits for building a successful payments strategy.
Digging Deeper into Emotional Intelligence
We’ve talked about emotional intelligence here and here, but we’d like to revisit what EQ really means. Let’s look at the most important qualities tethered to EQ:
Identifying emotions: Before you can do anything with emotions (yours or other people’s), you need to be able to perceive them. That means recognizing verbal indicators as well as non-verbal cues about how you or another person is feeling.
Understanding emotions: It doesn’t stop at identifying emotions. Once you perceive an emotion, it’s important to think critically about it and recognize that there may be a lot of gray area involved in what you or another person is feeling. In other words, not everything is black and white. This allows you to be in control of your emotions.
Managing emotions: Identifying and dissecting emotions lay the groundwork for better control over your emotions. It enables you to regulate yourself and respond appropriately in any given situation.
Why EQ Matters in Payment Experiences
If we look back to the beginning, we talked about influencing others, being empathetic, and working as a team. In payments, those things are essential to making internal operations seamless – and to keeping your customers happy. Here’s how:
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness underpins success. It drives more efficient use of time and resources. It helps you and your team identify weaknesses that can be improved. And it is critical when it comes to hiring and creating teams that work well together – and choosing third-party vendors that are aligned with your ethos and mission.
Building relationships
We recently posted about how better payment experiences can foster good relationships. EQ goes hand-in-hand with this notion as people with high EQs are better able to forge connections with others. Emotional intelligence allows you to empathize with your students, staff, and parents on their needs – especially their payments needs. High-EQ teams understand that good business is all about fostering quality connections – and that includes building good relationships by offering better payment experiences.
Communication
Communication can be verbal and nonverbal. What you say, how you say it, and how you act are equally important in effectively communicating with others. In other words, high-EQ teams not only talk the talk but walk the walk. It means “state of the art” and “innovative” schools embrace those qualities across the board – including in the types of payments technology they use and options they offer to students, staff, and parents.
If you’re looking for a payments partner who shares in your vision and embraces the importance of EQ, reach out to our team at Arrow Payments for a free consultation.
