Do you believe excellent customer service starts with hiring the right people? If yes, then having the right team is the first step to delivering outstanding service at your business.
But how do you find the best customer service talents, and more importantly, how can you be sure they’re the right fit for representing your brand and serving your customers effectively? Let’s explore this in detail in this article.
Challenges and Hiring Pains in Customer Service
Customer service is the backbone of business success. It’s the vital connection between a company and its customers. Good customer service builds trust, loyalty, and positive experiences, leading to business growth and success.
In fact, in customer service, 91 percent of customers might switch companies after just one bad experience.¹ But, 80 percent can forgive a company’s mistake if they receive excellent service.² What do these statistics indicate? These numbers suggest that customers have high expectations for service quality and are intolerant of poor experiences.
Finding good customer service talent is no simple task. Companies often want to fill a position without finding the right person. Sometimes, even if someone has the right qualifications, they might not have the right attitude and mindset to align with your team and meet your business goals.
Hiring Strategies for Call Center Agents
You can apply call center hiring strategies throughout every phase of the recruitment process. Here are some guidelines for creating a pool of potential agents.
Pay Attention to Building Your Employer Brand
Employee branding is about how a company is perceived as an employer. It’s about how you present the organization to potential candidates, emphasizing unique cultural aspects. It defines the company’s identity, its uniqueness, and what it stands for.
A strong employer brand signals that your company is a great workplace, benefiting your recruitment, employee engagement, and retention. When done effectively, it generates positive word-of-mouth, attracting motivated candidates and satisfied employees.
They can tell others about their positive experiences, spreading the word to potential hires, clients, customers, and stakeholders, which helps strengthen the employer brand.
Additionally, a strong employer brand makes it easier to attract top talent. Ensure your company’s website and social media channels emphasize the benefits of working with you and showcase the company’s culture and initiatives.
Related Reading: Quality at Scale: Everything You Need to Know About Salem Solutions’ High-Volume Call Center Staffing Solutions
Seek Advice from Existing Agents
You might often wonder where to find new agents. The current staff is an excellent source of advice and offers a valuable source of information.
Ask them about what qualities they would seek if they were involved in the recruiting process. This approach allows you to understand their perspective, fostering engagement by involving them in business activities.
Existing agents are also well-acquainted with the job requirements and can assist in pre-screening candidates. If potential candidates have questions, they can also talk to existing employees for more insights into the position and team.
Establish an Employee Referral Program
Many employees might already have network contacts who could help fill vacant positions. An effective employee referral program can further encourage more employees to recommend top candidates.
Consider providing referral rewards to motivate people to share the opportunity, making it one of the most effective call center recruitment strategies. Great people tend to associate themselves with other skilled experts.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
Several organizations recognize the importance of implementing DEI practices and actively work towards creating an inclusive work environment. However, many organizations still have a lot of progress to make.
It’s also widely understood that a workplace with cultural diversity drives innovation, fosters creativity, and increases business profitability.
DEI efforts ensure that the call center agents mirror the diverse customer base. Having representatives from various backgrounds helps understand and address customers’ diverse needs and preferences.
A diverse team also brings together individuals with different perspectives, experiences, and problem-solving approaches. This diversity allows teams to come up with more creative solutions and strategies for addressing customer issues.
Organizations prioritizing DEI in their call center hiring practices project a positive and inclusive image. This can enhance the company’s reputation and attractiveness to both customers and potential employees.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI technology is applied for candidate sourcing, resume review, and interview scheduling tasks. Certain platforms utilize AI to analyze responses to written interview questions by learning from the data and employing algorithms to advance candidates who best fit the criteria.
You can use AI for job recommendations on career sites, candidate matching, suggesting job descriptions, automated messages for candidate screening, and scoring candidate engagement. AI also shows significant potential for eliminating bias from resumes, as AI-powered writing tools can substitute biased or gendered language.
For instance, Nowsta is an HR technology platform designed for companies to discover, recruit, oversee, and analyze their workforce. The platform utilizes AI-driven analytics to assist clients in recognizing patterns, such as high turnover rates in particular departments.
This enables organizations to identify and address underlying causes while implementing retention strategies swiftly. Additionally, Nowsta offers an AI-powered scheduling solution, providing accurate staffing predictions and personalized scheduling options based on employee preferences or performance.
Related Reading: How AI Can Improve Your Call Center Performance
Interact with Job Seekers as You Would with Customers
When meeting applicants in person, over the phone, or through video, the impression they get of your brand is important. You should focus on the job and make candidates excited about connecting with the management team. A great strategy in hiring, especially for call centers, is treating interviewees just like you treat customers.
To do this, be respectful of their time, show up on time for interviews, create a friendly atmosphere, and strive to make a positive first impression as the first person they encounter from the company. Lastly, ensure accessibility by providing precise contact details so candidates can reach out with questions at any time during the hiring process.
Related Reading: The Importance of Relationship-Building for Call Centers
Ensure Well-Defined Roles and Responsibilities
Before advertising a job, the organization must know the necessary qualifications and other job details. In the interview, provide fundamental information about the job, covering aspects such as salary, working hours, dress code, days off, vacation leave, and more.
Clearly communicate the company’s expectations and include a standard workday and workweek. Discuss considerations like holiday work and training attendance. Lastly, address interviewees’ inquiries regarding the company and the specific job. Strive to offer a comprehensive understanding of your expectations.
The Ideal Candidate Profile for Customer Service
Sometimes, we get too focused on finding the “perfect” candidate. But the truth is, it’s almost impossible to find someone ideal because they might be working elsewhere, and you can’t fully know them just from their resume and interview.
The good thing is you don’t need perfection. The key is understanding what to seek in potential candidates and keeping that in mind during interviews. Here are some handy tips to help you along the way.
Related Reading: 6 Qualities That Make a Great Call Center Agent
Great Communicators
Customer service revolves around people and involves creating positive personal connections during daily customer interactions. In customer-focused roles, outstanding communication skills are essential. Effective communication fosters stronger relationships and instills trust, contributing to customer satisfaction.
Good Listeners
In customer service, being an excellent listener is an essential skill that’s vital for understanding customers’ needs, wants, and concerns, especially when interacting with upset customers. A skilled listener can pose the appropriate questions to grasp the real issue causing customer frustration and enhance a customer’s overall experience by providing the best solution.
Excels in Collaborative Teamwork
Providing service to customers, particularly in large organizations, necessitates successful teamwork. Individuals who are team players will quickly establish strong connections with all team members and feel at ease working collaboratively with colleagues, management, and even customers in a shared environment.
Demonstrate Leadership Qualities
Leaders set positive examples for their teams and excel in problem-solving, taking responsibility, and making decisions. Leadership skills are essential in complex situations where customers expect someone to take charge and provide a prompt and effective solution.
Has the Right Mindset
To serve customers effectively, one must possess a service-oriented mindset. This involves being prepared to assist others and going above and beyond, creating genuinely positive and memorable customer experiences to ensure customer satisfaction.
Adopt Attitude-Driven Hiring Skills through Training
Customer service representatives serve as your brand’s face, and they can either make or break your company’s reputation. Once identified and hired, investing effort in ongoing training is important. This ensures they possess a thorough understanding of your products or services and can adeptly serve customers with high professionalism.
Finding and training great customer service people gives your team an optimal chance for growth and success within your organization. This investment yields significant returns over time. Remember, individuals capable of delivering outstanding service foster customer loyalty, generate referrals and contribute to your business’s long-term success.
FIND GREAT-FIT CANDIDATES WITH SALEM SOLUTIONS
You’ve mastered the art of hiring customer service representatives; all that’s left is to start your search today with Salem Solutions. We specialize in recruiting for hard-to-fill positions and managing high-volume staffing needs. We also offer continuous HR support and talent management to guarantee our associates’ success.
Contact us today, and let’s build a resilient and high-performing call center team that thrives in the future.
References
1 McCain, Abby. “30 Crucial Customer Service Statistics to Pay Attention to [2023]: How Businesses Succeed.” Zippia, https://www.zippia.com/advice/customer-service-statistics/.
2 Dencheva, Valentina. “Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors Based on Their Customer Service Experience Worldwide as of May 2022.” Statista, 8 May 2023, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1323488/consumer-behavior-customer-service-worldwide/.