What hiring approaches can improve customer service long term?

My top three customer service hiring prerequisites:

1. Must actually want the job. Lots of people just want *a* job, or a stepping stone. Make sure this person thinks customer service is neat.

2. Must have huge levels of empathy. Customer service burns you out, and you have to be able to handle it.

3. Must have good troubleshooting skills. Sorry, if you don't have this you need to find another profession.

My full, too-verbose-for-Focus list is at: http://ar.gy/puH

Dr. Stephen Covey became famous for teaching us about paradigms, which in short are those deeply held beliefs that control our automated decision processes. In live-interaction settings a person's automatic responses are crucial.

For customer service, and in fact for ANY position, a person's beliefs are much more important than their technical ability.

Whether a hiring manager follows Lisa's advice of telephone interviewing or creates other scenarios, the interview process MUST draw up your candidate's belief set. Nurses are great with customers as a generality because they have a belief set centered on relieving human anguish. But not all nurses share that belief set, right?

My advice as to hiring approach is for managers to stop looking for the easy way out, the "system" or shortcut. Take the time and effort to craft an entire hiring process, from recruiting to filtering to interviewing to employee management, centered around locating, acquiring and leading a team with a common belief set which meets the best interests of your culture and the purpose of your business. (not profit... I mean the "other" purpose)

As I often say, this cannot be accomplished through the traditional interviewing process, full of Q&A. it can only be accomplished through well-planned scenarios which have been thought all the way through, and which are then skillfully executed with your candidate.

Together, let's put the fun back into work!
Belldon Colme
belldoncolme@gmail.com

yes, great answers. Love the "caring" gene, service orientation, desire to help, and empathy. You specifically asked about hiring approaches. Coming from healthcare recruitment experience, and I'm sure in other industries, candidates will tell you all day long they love to help people. You have to weed out those candidates with the pat response of saying they love to help people and those who actually do help people in their personal and professional lives. The two do cross over. You can coach and train for managing difficult customers and situations, but there is a much longer learning curve on training and developing personal empathy and compassion. Develop your behavior based and situation based questions to target the level of empathetic response your organization requires. Observe the candidate as they interact with your staff - are they patient? do they apologize if necessary? Do they help in some manner if necessary? What does their body language say in the waiting area? Etc. Etc. Obviously there is more to do on the performance management side of the equation, but get the right emotion/service orientation in the hiring seat.

Caty, when employers hire for job suitability retention soars and customer service increases. Therefore, hire for job suitability. If you want to know what a bad fit, marginal fit, good fit, and a great fit look like, please stop by my web site...

http://www.gatelyconsulting.com

and click on the bottom five links to have access to the following 5 web pages. The following web pages for the famous and infamous Fit Family demonstrate various degrees of Overall Job Match, i.e., Job Fit or Job Suitability.

1. a Bad Job Fit, i.e., Overall Job Match less than 70% (42% for Bobby Bad Fit)
2. a Marginal Job Fit, i.e., Overall Job Match of 70% to 80% (75% for Mary Marginal Fit.
3. a Good Job Fit, i.e., Overall Job Match of 81% to 90% (88% for Georgina Good Fit.)
4. a Great Job Fit, i.e., Overall Job Match of 90% and above (95% for Billy Great Fit)
5. What the scores mean.

One of the best strategies when hiring for an employee who will serve customers mostly on the phone is do some of the interview over the phone. It is absolutely necessary to hear their "phone voice". The energy, enthusiasm and confidence can be very different on the phone vs in person. Make sure you are hiring the right fit and the right voice for your team.

The most important information I am after in the interview of a customer service position is if they like helping people. I like to see some form of a service job in their history, even if it is just a waiter/waitress. I ask about their experiences and what they liked and disliked. If I can understand how they like helping people, even when they are difficult to help, I have a good idea if they will work well with the customers or burn out in months.

Hire for the long-term. Even if you're in a time bind, don't sacrifice for a lesser-than-desired candidate

Look for people who are 'wired to serve'. The up-and-coming generation is full of people with this characteristic.

Emotionally-intelligent people are better than automatons at providing great experiences and great service to others.

If you have the luxury of putting people into the role for a half day so that you can both try each other on for size, you'll get the most valuable feedback. (I've actually done this and it works.)

Most importantly,

Provide an employee experience that reflects the kind of customer experience you expect your service team to provide. If you don't do it, why should they?

Simply put, hire for attitude, teach aptitude.

All of the answers giving above are great and they all keep repeating the same thing.
Hire people who fit the job. They also all offer great suggestions on how to do that. If applied will get you great people. But you need to look at the answer from a different angle ft you looking for long term retention.

If someone leaves or in a short period of time that is a usually a hiring mistake and you need to follow all of the suggestions offered above. If you loose them after 6 months are more than it is usually a management problem or the company did not deliver what they promised in the selection process.

Remember great people join companies and leave manager.

Great answers. I am a huge believer in telephone interviews and hiring for fit. I have also found when hiring seeking customer service talent asking for "best customer service experiences" is invaluable. Candidates who can describe a positive scenario either as a customer or in serving others "get it." Those who focus on complaints or problems or who cannot describe being on the receiving end of great service are unlikely to ever provide what you are searching for.