Contact Centers: Eight Ways to Improve Your CSR Recruitment and Hiring Processes, Part 1

Recruiting, interviewing, training and hiring the right customer service reps (CSRs) is a crucial component of your catalog’s success. The Ascent Group, a Kite, Ga.-based management consulting firm specializing in customer service operations and improvement, offers in its white paper”Improving Front-line Recruitment& Hiring” the following tips you may find useful.

1. Hire for attitude; train for technical skills. “Consider potential, not necessarily experience,” note the white paper’s authors. During the interview ask questions that would demonstrate if the candidate is motivated and enthusiastic, and loves to serve others.

2. Match candidate expectations with work reality. “The more a candidate understands the job, the work environment, performance expectations and culture, the better the fit,” writes The Ascent Group. Tactics to try include job shadowing, peer reviews and simulation.

3. Match the individual to the job. Behavorial-based assessment tools in the interviewing process can help here. You want to better understand how the applicant would react and perform on the job under different scenarios and daily pressures. Use role-playing, job simulation techniques, phone interviews and peer interviews.

4. Emphasize to candidates your commitment to customer service. Don’t assume that anyone applying for a customer service job automatically subscribes to your high ideals for excellent service. Therefore, in your help-wanted ads and in the interviews, stress the important role customer service plays in your catalog company. Discern from the candidate’s reaction if he or she is impressed, excited and challenged by this idea, or if he or she is nonchalant or dismissive about it. That’s usually a red flag.

Look for tips No. 5 to 8 next week in Idea Factory: recruit for the position and schedule; maximize Internet resources; solicit employee referrals; and streamline your applicant tracking system.

For more, visit http://www.ascentgroup.com.