Customer Success

You Can Teach Skills. You Can’t Shortcut Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence Isn’t a Quick Training Module Training someone emotionally takes time. A lot of time. And if the person being trained is young, inexperienced, or convinced they already know better? It often takes even longer.

Kim Wren

03 Dec 2025 — 2 min read

The Missing Skill in Modern Hiring and Customer Service. Recently, I read an article about a company that hires people into customer service roles based primarily on their problem-solving ability, even if they lack emotional intelligence, with the assumption that emotional intelligence can be taught later.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Because while you can teach systems, tools, workflows, and policies, teaching emotional intelligence is an entirely different animal.

And it’s hard. Really hard.

Emotional Intelligence Isn’t a Quick Training Module

Training someone emotionally takes time. A lot of time. And if the person being trained is young, inexperienced, or convinced they already know better? It often takes even longer.

Why?

Because young people, especially those early in their careers, are notorious for believing the person training them (sometimes barely older than they are) is out of touch, irrelevant, or flat-out wrong. Not always. But often enough that it becomes a pattern.

I’m not saying it’s impossible. I am saying it’s expensive.

Expensive in:

Time
Energy
Patience
Team morale

And let’s not forget the cost to the people who:

Pick up the slack while others “learn”
Apologize repeatedly for awkward or inappropriate responses
Smooth things over with customers after someone says something really wrong… or really stupid

That toll adds up quickly.

A More Practical Approach: Balance the Team

To me, a better solution is obvious: hire a mix of people.

Some who are naturally strong in emotional intelligence. Some who excel at analytical thinking and problem solving.

Because here’s the reality, almost no customer issue is solved instantly. Most tickets take time, investigation, and collaboration. Having emotionally intelligent people involved keeps customers calm and heard while solutions are being worked out. Having strong problem solvers ensures the issue actually gets fixed.

When these two types of people work together, everyone wins:

The customer feels respected
The problem gets solved correctly
The team learns from one another organically

And over time, they train each other, without burning out leadership or sacrificing customer trust.

Not Every Hire Needs to Be a “Rising Star”

There’s another uncomfortable truth businesses don’t always like to admit:

Not all employees need to be bright, young, fast-climbing superstars.

Sometimes the best hire is the person who has:

Been doing excellent work for years
Knows how to talk to people
Understands nuance, tone, and restraint
Simply wants to keep doing solid, reliable work

There is immense value in experience. In steadiness. In people who have already learned the hard lessons and don’t need to make them again, at your company’s expense.