Hiring for a CAll Center

[Cirep10]

Hi Everyone,

I am in the process of expanding my Call Center. We currently have eight employees and looking to expand to about fifth teen or twenty new people.

I am looking for key questions to ask potential new hires.

CAN ANY ASSIST ME???

[Cirep10]

Sorry I was not more specific. We are actually a inbound/non-sales call center. I need all the help I can possibly get.

[Karsten Fuhrmann]

Hi,

with your current number of employees, this might be hard to do, but I suggest you talk to your best performer(s) and try to find out what they have in common. Than, you can check during the interview, if your candidates show the same behavior pattern.

Hope this helps

[Cirep10]

Hi Karsten Fuhrmann,

Thanks for the advice. I actually have an interview today. Are you able to give me any ideas or general questions that you asked when hiring for your call center?

[Karsten Fuhrmann]

Hello,

let's do it offline - just drop me a mail: karsten.fuhrmann@hotmail.com

[Bill_LumbergTPS]

Cirep---

I hope this helps. It was taken out of our June 2002 newsletter article Job Hiring for Retention. I've pasted some questions from the article below (I appologize for the format). Hope this helps.


-- Do you feel the customer is always right?
-- How do you handle unruly or demanding customers?
-- What level of decision-making authority have you had in your last two positions?
-- How did you handle a situation when the customer was totally wrong?
-- Why did you go into the customer service department as opposed to sales?
-- After a difficult day, how do you handle stress?
-- What was the most difficult customer service problem you had to face at your last company?
-- In what type of industry do you prefer to work?
-- When going into a new company or industry, what do you do to get a firm grasp on the company and its products?
-- What was the pace at your last company?
-- How have you been able to interact effectively with others on different levels in your most recent company?
-- What do you feel are the personal qualities necessary to be successful as a customer service representative?
-- What types of decisions are difficult for you?
-- At your most recent position, what were some of the things that you spent most of your time working on?
-- If you were head of the customer service department with authority to effect changes, what three things would you change?
-- What are your weaknesses?
-- If you had to stay in your current job, what would you spend more time doing?
-- To what do you attribute your job successes?
--Looking out over the next five years, tell me about your goals and objectives?



- Impact Learning Systems -

[ghorrocks]

Although the questions listed are great I would use different questions to draw out a specific situation. You want the person you are interviewing to give you a situation task action and result. Otherwise any other question can be found in text books or online. Using the right questions will give you a better job fit. If you search interview questions you can see all of the common questions and answers as listed above, no offense. That is why microsoft ask questions like if you were going to design bill gates bathroom describe specifically the steps you would take. They are looking for creative people that can give situation, task, action, result and follow up. please email if you have any other questions or visit www.contactcentercampus.com

[Michcall]

We use behavioral-based questions that require the interviewee to provide examples of their experiences, such as:

>All of us have bad customer service experiences from time to time. Give an example of one you've experienced and how you handled it.
>Communication skills are very important in this role. Give an example of a time when you had to use strong communication skills to resolve an issue.
>Give an example of a time when you had to diffuse an angry situation.
>Describe a time you were frustrated with someone and how did you handle it?

The logic here is that past experiences can be a good indicator of future success. I would look at your particular roles and determine what are the traits you need to have to be successful: multi-tasking, computer literacy, anger management, communications, etc. and build questions around those.

[Dismuke]

In addition to all good suggestions here, ask yourself what sort of behaviors and/or personality types you have had problems with in your specific call center and devise some questions that will hopefully screen out future potential problems in this area.

Also, are your agents required to do any level of problem solving? Are they required to match solutions to customer needs? If so, you need to be aware ahead of time that there are people in this world who, quite sadly, are incapable of performing simple tasks in these areas. You will want to screen these people out as this is not a skill that you will be able to teach in a training class or though coaching sessions. You risk ending up hiring people who get through the interview because they have great personalities, great phone voices and great attitudes but are doomed to fail and require high maintenance because they simply cannot make the necessary mental connections.

If you do not use standardized testing to uncover this, come up with some written problem solving tests of your own. Write a paragraph or two about your industry or product and then have them answer a bunch of follow up questions as to which option or solution would make the most sense for a given customer situation. Test for reading comprehension and inference. Write a paragraph and then devise questions to determine whether or not they actually understood what they read and whether they can draw simple inferences and conclusions based on it. Keep everything simple and allow one or two errors for nervousness and/or an honest brain burp - but if they have problems scoring on the test, don't hire them unless all you need them to do is read a very simple script over and over again all day. If they cannot understand the very basic and simple paragraphs in your test, they will certainly not be able to understand the material they will need to perform the job.

[Christine]

Hi,
I went recently through that process myself and I can share with you valuables points from that experience.
First, it is very important that you build a profile of best candidate requested for the job. For that you will need collaboration of teamleaders and associates already hired for that position. Do not hesitate to sit and listen to a few conversations with customers, that will give you a good idea of the quality you are looking for.
Have a formal interview with teamleaders. Question them on who is the best performer of the team and why. Ask him or her what he or she is looking for as a good candidate.
Review the job description and question every point to verify if it is still adequate. Any new qualifications or talents?
When you are sure of the profile and job description, write down the questions to ask the candidate in order to verify those points.
I usualy proceed in two steps: first a telephone interview. (you should have no hesitation if you want to schedule an interview in person). Second, the interview in person: I proceed to a 45 min alone with the candidate and another 15 minutes is plan with the teamleader who will have also another set of questions and with whom the candidate will have a tour of the call center before he leaves. Then finally, meet together with team leader and discuss of your impressions.
If you are the official Recruter, you have still the last word!!
Hope this will help!!! Sorry for my written English, it might not be perfect.