Best Practice Tips for recruiting customer service staff
I know this might sound like a no-brainer, even a little silly, but when recruiting customer service staff you need to attract and recruit candidates who actually enjoy dealing with people.
Perhaps candidates who even care about customers – shock! horror!
I am sure we all have experiences of dealing with an employee of a company who wasn’t so customer focused –and I’m sure you told plenty of people about that not so great experience!
As a recruiter and someone who is immensely proud of our brand, I want people to join our business who have the same passion for people and customers I do.
In my role, a lot of our recruitment focus goes towards identifying those candidates who do enjoy the service element of their job.
Customer service isn’t crucial to a single industry or just the industry I work in, it’s crucial across a spectrum of industries and across all levels of an organisation!
Just because you don’t have customer service in your job title doesn’t mean you don’t have to live and breathe it.
Even recruitment is customer-focused, my customers are just a little different…
5 Tips to identify great customer service staff during recruitment
During recruitment, how do you identify a great customer service professional or even identify a customer service focus in candidates?
These 5 tips below for recruiting customer service staff have helped me over the years and I trust they will now help you in your recruitment process.
- Great candidates with a strong customer focus will treat you like a customer – how do they deal with YOU as a recruiter? Do they return your calls when they say they would, submit forms and other documents as you need them? This goes for candidates at ALL levels – from GM to reception and everything in between.
- Have they got other credentials in their CV you might overlook normally? Perhaps they might have been a sports coach for a junior team? Volunteered locally? Maybe even speak in their interview about helping friends or family?
- Do they engage with you –and make you as a recruiter, feel like you have their full attention and time on the phone and in interviews? Because if they don’t… imagine what your customers might think…
- Don’t rule out a great customer-focused candidate by a job title – customer service runs throughout many different positions –which might not have customer service in the title.
- Don’t forget – great customer service people know great customer service, and they are also ALWAYS in demand. Make sure you are practising what you preach and giving them a great candidate experience.
Well, I’ve typed the words customer service so many times they have almost lost meaning…
So I’m off to check my applications and go and hire some more customer service rock stars!
Happy Recruiting Customer Service staff!
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