How to Hire the Right Person for Customer Service

Posted July 3, 2017

Customer service doesn't start when a customer walks through your door or calls you on the phone. It starts when an applicant is chosen to fill a customer service role.

Putting the proper people in place is the first step toward providing exceptional customer service at your company; however, that is no easy task. Many times, a company will simply fill a position with someone who appears the most impressive, as opposed to actually finding the proper person for customer service. It's important to note, the candidates with the best credentials and experience do not always have the best attitude and soft skills to be a great customer service representative.

Because customer service is all about personal interactions, the interview is the most important part of the hiring process for these jobs. To understand how candidates interact with others, you should forget about asking the typical questions in the usual setting. For instance, meeting with each candidate and asking them about their biggest weakness isn't going to teach you much about their customer service skills.

Instead, you have to be creative, be challenging and incorporate multiple people into each interview.

Get up and walk around

First of all, it's important to get away from your desk or conference room table. Spend a good chunk of the interview touring your facilities and allowing people from all levels of your organization to interact with the candidate. An ideal candidate will interact with the company’s top executives the same way they talk to the cleaning staff, which is to say in a positive and engaging manner.

Throw curveballs with purpose

You've probably heard about Google using bizarre interview questions to assess their applicants, and while wacky questions can be a bit of a gimmick - they can be useful if done right.

For instance, asking candidates what kind of animal they'd like to be can tell you something about their personality. So, if a candidate sees themselves as a shark - you can infer they prioritize aggression, which may be good in sales, but not necessarily in service. On the other hand, if a candidate sees themselves as social animal, you could infer they will embrace the chance to help your customers.

Prioritize diversity

A business must be prepared to interact with people from all walks of life, and part of that preparation is hiring a diverse customer service staff. This doesn't necessarily mean having each ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion represented in your staff. It does mean you need to hire people who think a bit differently from each other, possibly due to different backgrounds.

Having a diversity of thought doesn't just help with customer service; it also means you will have a range of opinions when it comes to finding new solutions.

Work With a Full-Service Staffing Agency

At Ambassador Personnel, we have years of experience in identifying the best candidates for customer service positions. Please contact us to work with a full-service staffing agency and if your company is looking to fill customer service roles.