What to ask when hiring for customer servicing? This is one of the biggest concerns a Manager has when interviewing hundreds of candidates. You not all want someone who is experienced but also, someone pleasant to work with, you and your existing team.
As a team leader or the owner of a startup, a lot of us have been in a situation where, we have had the best-experienced person on the team, yet things don’t work out the way we thought they would. If, you haven’t been there, consider yourself LUCKY! So, what went wrong? Without wasting time, here’s what went wrong, this person was not the right one for this particular team. Imagine a science student attempting an art question, well basics could be right but what about the advanced level questions? Hence, placing the right person in the right place is the only key to getting the job done. SIMPLE.
Here are FIVE basic yet, to the point questions you could ask your candidate when hiring for your customer support department;
- How would you define good customer service?
As simple as it sounds, this is one of the mandatory questions to ask your candidate. If they can’t answer the basics, what do you think they’ll do with high-level customer interactions? You want someone whose basics are clear and who understands the whats and whys of customer support. Customer servicing is not for everyone. Yes, as a leader, you would help but you’d still need to have the right guy.
- When responding to a customer, how do you decide what information to include and what to leave out?
Now, this question will not only give you an insight into how well-informed your candidate is but also, the level of reactiveness. Since you will get multiple answers to this and a lot of them will be different from each other, remember you are looking for someone who knows, how to make your customer feel important, cared for yet, making sure “certain policies are respected” at the same time. You want your customer service team to understand two very crucial things, customers hate when they are told “as per our policies, we won’t….” and the managers love saying “we won’t be able to cater to that because…,” so you need someone to keep cool and find a way to make everyone happy. That’s who you want onboard.
- What’s the best customer service you’ve ever received? Why?
This is one of the most important questions to ask when hiring for the customer service department. Your candidate should be able to explain what made him happy as a customer because that’s how he has to make your customers feel. Someone with good experience as a customer will understand why it is important to service clients to the highest level of satisfaction.
- What’s the best way to help a customer who has worked with multiple agents and hasn’t received the help they need?
Handling irate customers is one of the biggest fears of a customer service representative. You want your team members to be comfortable when dealing with a customer who is not willing to listen or understand the situation, no matter how much sense it’s making. On average, 4 out of 10 customers you come across in a day, have had a terrible experience and the temperature is too high. They will say no to anything and ask for everything. Believe it or not, no matter what you do, these customers will not go happy, which is ok. However, you need a team who can at least make the customer feel not so terrible about the situation. When looking at the answers to this question, make sure you not just see, how will they handle the situation, but also, how well they worked on fixing the previous agents’ damage.
- What appeals to you about this role?
If they don’t know why they’re here, then it’s no point taking the interview forward. It’s as simple as it can get, your candidate should have a clear answer to this question. You don’t want someone who is not confident with what they are doing or saying, handling your customers.
Remember, to look for less typical answers, someone who ACTUALLY feels excited and has ideas to make the task easy, interesting yet has a professional approach, is the person you want to hire. Even though learning is a never-ending process and you will learn a lot on this journey, it’s important to start right. The foundation has to be strong to bear the weight of success. Hiring the right person for the right team is something that has to be a part of the base and not something to take care of at a later stage.
