5 Tips for Hiring Customer Service Representatives
When your customers have a problem, they turn to your customer service team to resolve it. That interaction can mean the difference between losing a loyal customer forever and building an even stronger relationship with them. That’s why hiring customer service representatives who are exceptional at their job and committed to serving your customers with excellence is so important. And with the right hiring methods, you can find and recruit these top-notch professionals who will take your customer service to the next level.
1. Write an Accurate Job Description
Attracting and hiring customer service representatives who will work hard for your business and contribute to fit in well with your culture begins with writing an accurate, equitable, and clear job description. It should lay out what specific expectations and duties there are for the role, reflect your company’s culture and values, and use inclusive language.
Some important qualifications for customer service representatives include effectively resolving problems, building trust quickly with customers, and multitasking.
2. Hire for Soft Skills
Soft skills are difficult to train in new employees, and they’re also particularly critical for customer service roles. Hiring customer service representatives who already possess the most important soft skills for the role such as communication, empathy, the ability to bounce back from negative customer interactions, and quick problem-solving ensures your organization will have an advantage in providing excellent customer service.
You can screen for soft skills by using pre-hire assessments or asking candidates questions such as, “How have you dealt with frustrated callers in previous roles?” Behavioral questions will give you insight into how your potential new employees bring their soft skills to their role, and if they have what it takes to succeed.
3. Use Pre-Hire Assessments
Once your job description has attracted applicants, you will want to prioritize the people who are most likely to succeed. Using AI technology, such as Cangrade’s Pre-Hire Assessments, you can quickly and accurately decide which candidates are a strong fit for your role and workplace, without the bias that traditional hiring methods can introduce.
These assessments ensure that your top candidates are truly qualified for the role of customer service representative because they can perform tasks like leading conversations quickly toward a successful resolution for both sides, following strict protocols while still remaining intuitive and natural, and handling feedback gracefully. They can also help determine if the candidate will be fulfilled by the role and routine of customer service representative as well.
4. Integrate Your Core Values
When hiring customer service representatives, they will be the face of your company for many of your customers. You want to attract people who will connect strongly with your company’s core values and workplace culture so they represent your business at its best.
In the application and hiring process, and throughout the candidate experience, be sure you’re including your core values at every stage so your candidates can decide if they can commit to them in their potential new role. You can also ask questions related to your core values and how the candidate would potentially embody them in your structured interview process.
5. Ask How Applicants Define Customer Service
What does the concept of customer service mean to your potential new hires? This is a vital question if your goal is hiring customer service representatives who are the best in their field, because customer service is more than just a department – it’s a philosophy as well.
Asking candidates about how they define customer service, and what it means to them, will help you separate the candidates who simply want an open role from those who have a true customer service mentality. It’s important to note that there’s no right answer to this question – just many options that either do or don’t connect with your company’s approach to serving customers.
Hiring Customer Service Representatives, In Conclusion
When your business is looking to fill open customer service roles, you want to be sure you’re attracting the best candidates and evaluating them accurately and objectively. Cangrade can help make your hiring more effective, for your customer service roles and beyond. Contact us to learn more today.