In the Contact Center Industry, recruitment is a crucial factor for success but can be quite a demanding one. As a result of this challenge, many companies hire just to fill the openings but don’t necessarily fill these openings with the candidates with the best experience or personality to match the profile needed to ensure customer satisfaction.
Unfortunately, turnover is a vicious cycle and hiring the wrong people will increase your contact center turnover percentage.
Let’s go into a bit more detail on the 4 tops traits you should focus on when hiring contact center agents:
1. Experience. Candidates should have at least one year of experience working in the customer service industry. This doesn’t specifically have to be in the contact center or call center arenas though! For example, retail and fast food experience are great as employees are required to handle face-to-face interactions with customers in a friendly and timely matter as well as resolve potential issues. This helps build one’s character, patience and ability to think outside the box to provide resolution.
Please note, longevity of employment is equally important. If possible, refrain from hiring job hoppers. Job hoppers have multiple employers every year and typically leave each employer after a brief period, often 90 days or less, of employment.
Additionally, if the candidate had more than two jobs without a valid reason for leaving, this should be a red flag. The same person poses a larger risk of leaving your company if unsatisfied in the job duties and details.
2. Excellent Verbal and Written Communication Skills. There are several ways in the recruitment process to communicate with candidates in order to assess these areas. As an employer/recruiter, you have the ability to check grammar skills via written communication in both emails and the candidate’s resume. When it comes to verbal communication, you can gain insight on skill level during a pre-screening interview, a phone call, and/or a face-to-face or video interview.
Remember, your employee is a reflection of the company, any brands you represent, and the culture you are fostering at your organization. It’s essential that your candidate must be able to articulate clearly and well.
During the interview process, ask a lot of open-ended questions. Listen for the use of slang or word mispronunciations. It may be a good idea to implement script reading if needed. Some contact centers incorporate specific assessments to gauge grammar, written communication and technical skills.
3. Great Listener. While listening is a part of good communication, it’s important enough to be sectioned out on its own.
A large aspect of communicating well is also having the ability to listen to the customers so agents can effectively solve their issues and direct their calls efficiently. A big part of customer retention and a successful resolution lies in the customer’s feeling that they are truly being heard and understood.
If agents come across as too overfamiliar or even overconfident or rude, they may not get to the true core of the customer’s concerns which can lead to irritation on both sides and a lack of customer satisfaction.
4. Friendly and Understanding. These are definitely necessary traits agents need to have in order to provide excellent customer service! Your agents are the representation of your company for customers. The experience the customers have with your agents sets the tone for how they view your company.
Difficult issues and even tough-to-deal-with customers come up. If your agents can’t be both friendly and understanding in challenging situations, they won’t be able to provide exceptional service. This can have a direct impact on revenue. Excellent customer service should be the standard, and it starts with basic human traits like kindness, warmth and understanding.
Which contact center software are you currently using for company?
With Qubicles, we can help you save 50% or more based on the demands of your contact center.
You will have the ability to manage your team anywhere in the world as long as you have internet access. As working-from-home becomes more accepted and common, this is crucial for success. This includes but is not limited to monitoring calls, real-time coaching of your representatives, running numerous analytical performance reports, and many more tools.
Learn more about Qubicles at qubicles.io. Registration is free and takes less than 5 minutes.
