Walk into a pharmacy chain and you will likely interact with a sales representative before you leave. That person’s ability to read your mood, stay composed under pressure, and genuinely focus on what you need may shape whether you walk out satisfied or never return. In a sector where trust is everything and competition is fierce, understanding the emotional skills that drive sales performance is a practical business question.
A new study published in the International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management examined how different dimensions of emotional intelligence relate to customer orientation and sales performance among pharmacy sales representatives in Vietnam. The central finding: emotional intelligence, especially the ability to regulate one’s own emotions, was strongly linked to customer-oriented behavior, which in turn was associated with higher sales performance. However, one component of emotional intelligence, simply being aware of your own emotions, showed no significant direct connection to sales results.
Why emotional intelligence in pharmacy sales?
The study was conducted by Sinh Hoang Nguyen, Dean of the School of Business Administration at Ho Chi Minh City Open University. Nguyen noted that Vietnam’s retail pharmacy market has been expanding rapidly, with chains like Pharmacity operating over 400 stores and competitors like Long Chau Pharmacy growing across more than 30 provinces. In this environment, pharmacies compete not just on product selection and price but on the quality of the customer experience.
Emotional intelligence, or EI, refers to a person’s ability to perceive, understand, use, and regulate emotions, both their own and those of others. The concept gained wide attention after psychologist Daniel Goleman popularized it in the 1990s. Unlike IQ, which is relatively fixed, EI is considered a set of skills that can be developed through training and practice.
While previous research had explored EI in various sales contexts, Nguyen identified a gap: there was limited empirical evidence on how specific EI dimensions influence sales performance in retail pharmacy chains, and even less on how customer orientation fits into that picture. Customer orientation, in this context, means a sales approach focused on identifying and meeting customer needs rather than simply pushing products to close a transaction.
How the study was designed
The research proceeded in two phases. First, a qualitative phase involved semi-structured interviews with two general managers of Pharmacity stores and structured interviews with a focus group of 10 experienced sales employees. These conversations helped refine the survey instrument and reduce the number of survey items from 32 to 29.
Next came the quantitative phase. A structured questionnaire was distributed via email to Pharmacity employees in Ho Chi Minh City who had at least one year of work experience. Recruitment ran from March through June 2023. Out of 420 surveys collected, 381 were usable. The sample skewed female (67.56%), which is common in the pharmacy sector. About 41% of respondents were between 31 and 40 years old, and nearly half had three to four years of experience.
The questionnaire measured four dimensions of EI using the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale, a well-validated self-report tool. The four dimensions were: self-emotion appraisal (understanding your own feelings), others’ emotion appraisal (recognizing emotions in the people around you), use of emotion (motivating yourself and channeling emotions productively), and regulation of emotion (staying calm and controlling emotional reactions). Customer orientation was measured using items adapted from the Sales Orientation-Customer Orientation scale, and sales performance was assessed through self-reported measures like the ability to generate revenue, exceed targets, and expand market share.
The data was analyzed using statistical software (SPSS and AMOS) through a series of steps: reliability testing, exploratory factor analysis to confirm that survey items grouped into the expected categories, confirmatory factor analysis to validate those groupings, and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypothesized relationships. SEM is a statistical technique that allows researchers to examine multiple relationships between variables at the same time.
What the numbers showed
All four dimensions of emotional intelligence were positively and significantly associated with customer orientation. Emotion regulation had the strongest link (standardized coefficient of 0.475), followed by others’ emotion appraisal (0.399), use of emotion (0.394), and self-emotion appraisal (0.054). In plain terms, sales representatives who reported being better at controlling their emotional reactions also reported behaving in more customer-focused ways.
When it came to sales performance, three of the four EI dimensions showed a significant positive association. Others’ emotion appraisal had the largest link to sales performance (0.259), followed by use of emotion (0.229) and emotion regulation (0.195). The exception was self-emotion appraisal, which did not show a statistically significant relationship with sales performance (p = 0.201). This means that merely understanding your own emotions did not appear to translate directly into better sales numbers.
Customer orientation itself was positively associated with sales performance (standardized coefficient of 0.255). This suggests a chain of events: emotional intelligence, particularly the ability to regulate emotions and read others, was linked to greater customer orientation, and that customer-focused approach was in turn linked to better sales outcomes. The study confirmed this indirect pathway alongside the direct connections between EI dimensions and performance.
The reliability of these results was further tested using a bootstrapping method with 1,000 resamples, which supported the stability of the estimates.
What this means for business leaders
The findings point to several practical considerations for managers in retail pharmacy and potentially other customer-facing industries.
First, hiring decisions could benefit from assessing candidates’ emotional intelligence, not just their technical knowledge or sales track record. The study suggests that the ability to read customers’ emotions and regulate one’s own emotional responses is associated with stronger sales results. Sales managers might consider incorporating EI assessments into recruitment processes.
Second, training programs could be designed with a specific focus on emotion regulation. Since this dimension showed the strongest connection to customer orientation, workshops and coaching sessions that teach employees to stay composed during stressful interactions, handle difficult customers without becoming reactive, and channel their emotions into productive behaviors could be worthwhile investments.
Third, the finding that self-emotion appraisal alone did not significantly relate to sales performance is worth noting. Knowing how you feel is not the same as knowing what to do with that information. Organizations might avoid over-investing in self-awareness exercises without also building the outward-facing skills of reading others and managing emotional responses in real time.
Fourth, customer orientation matters. The data suggests that sales employees who prioritize understanding and meeting customer needs, rather than simply closing transactions, tend to perform better. In a pharmacy setting, this could look like spending extra time explaining medication options, listening to health concerns, or recommending a less expensive alternative when it genuinely suits the customer. These behaviors build trust and may drive repeat visits and word-of-mouth referrals.
Important caveats to keep in mind
Several limitations are worth flagging. The study relied on self-reported data, meaning sales representatives assessed their own emotional intelligence, customer orientation, and performance. Self-reports can be influenced by social desirability bias, where people present themselves in a more favorable light than reality warrants.
The research was also cross-sectional, meaning it captured a snapshot in time rather than tracking changes over weeks or months. Because of this design, the study can identify associations between variables but cannot establish that emotional intelligence causes better sales performance. It is possible, for example, that high-performing salespeople develop stronger emotional skills as a result of their success, rather than the other way around.
The sample was drawn entirely from one company, Pharmacity, in one city, Ho Chi Minh City. Whether these findings apply to pharmacy chains in other countries, or to entirely different retail sectors, remains an open question. The study’s author acknowledged these limitations and called for future research using longitudinal designs, broader samples, and additional variables like job satisfaction and burnout.
Still, the findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that emotional skills are not a soft or secondary concern in sales. For managers running customer-facing teams, the data offers a concrete reason to pay attention to how their employees handle emotions, not just how well they know the product catalog.
