Bridge Insights

The Biggest Mistake You’re Making When Hiring for Customer Service Roles

Feb 25, 2020

Your customer service team is the heart and soul of your business. They are directly responsible for customer retention and shaping the opinion the public has of your brand.

If your business employs underperforming talent in these roles, your customers’ experiences will suffer, and, internally, your company will be starting a negative feedback loop of workplace toxicity.

So what can you do?

Asking behavioral interview questions that prompt your interviewee to provide specific situational responses is the best way to determine the high-value attributes that are engrained in their character.

Key attributes to evaluate during an interview are:

When building out your customer service team, it is important to look beyond the resume and assess the skills of the person sitting before you in the interview room.

Emotional Intelligence

Why is this important?

Emotional intelligence is a little bit different than standard intelligence. Individuals with high EQs are more empathic and can easily put themselves in someone else’s shoes.

This is critical in customer-facing roles due to the frequent interactions with customers –each with unique personalities and circumstances.

Behavioral Questions:

  • Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a co-worker or manager? Explain in detail the situation, how you handled the situation and what was the outcome.
  • Tell me about a specific time when someone criticized your work/performance. Explain the situation in detail and share how you responded to that person and what was the result?
  • Tell me about a time a customer made you upset? How did you handle the situation?

 

Integrity

Why is this important?

In customer service roles, you want to be confident that your team sounds authentic and is not over-committing on the capabilities your business can provide.  If your customer service team is perceived as inauthentic or unreliable, the integrity of your business will falter.

Behavioral Questions:

  • Tell me about a time you failed at something at work. How did you handle it?
  • Tell me about a time when you took credit for the work somebody else did. How did it make you feel and what was the outcome?
  • Tell me about a time you were entrusted with confidential information.

 

Motivation

Why is this important?

When motivation is influenced by external factors, this can lead to leads to feelings of resentment in your employees. These employees will then incorporate these feelings into the interactions they have with your customers and members of your staff. On the other hand, an self-motivated person will always be looking for ways to increase their productivity and the productivity of their team.

In short, the more self-motivated a workforce is, the higher their production output and overall customer satisfaction rates will be.

Behavioral Questions:

  • Tell me a time when you discovered an issue with a process at work. What steps did you take to rectify the problem?
  • Sometimes our workload can be stressful and unmanageable. Describe a time when you recognized that you were unable to meet the workload demand or a deadline. What did you do?
  • Tell me about a time you had to learn something new at work. What was the situation and how did you approach learning something new? How did it make you feel?

 

Personality

Why is this important?

The personality of an applicant can provide insight into how well they will fit into your culture and interact with current members of your staff. No one wants to work with a wet blanket!

Behavioral Questions:

  • How do you like to be managed?
  • How would your co-workers describe you?
  • Tell me about the best place you worked and what was it was that made it so great?

 

Dependability

Why is this important?

When we think of a dependable customer service representative, we tend to think of the person who shows up for work on time, but dependability is much more than that. A dependable customer service representative also regularly and consistently performs the objectives of their role and provides the same quality of customer service to all clients across the board.

The more dependable an employee proves themself, the more responsibility you can trust them to take on –making them an essential asset of your business long term.

Behavioral Questions:

  • Tell me about a time you were short-staffed at work. How did it make you feel and how did adapt to it?
  • How does it make you feel when you have a co-worker who is consistently late to work or returns late from a lunch break?
  • Have you ever had a time when you were given additional responsibilities at work and weren’t sure you were clear on what you needed to do to get the project done correctly and timely?  What was the project and how did you handle it?

The Wrap Up

When building out your customer service team, it is important to look beyond the resume and assess the skills of the person sitting before you in the interview room.

As a hiring manager, you must first decide what the most important attributes and skills are for your business and develop detailed behavioral interview questions to determine if an applicant will add value to your team.

An interview process that screens for these qualities will eliminate the risk for attrition, safeguard against poor customer experiences, and protect your company’s culture before toxicity can take hold.