Call Center Management Featured Article
Finding the Best Agents for Your Call Center
When attempting to fill seats in the contact center – always a necessity because of frequent high turnover – it’s tempting to hire the first resumes that come across your desk. After all, call center work doesn’t require a lot of skill…or does it?
While call center agents don’t require advanced degrees, they do require robust communications skills, empathy and patience. To turn up the volume on a great customer experience and reduce turnover, take some time to refine your hiring strategies for call center agents. Build a framework to test and measure for the type of skills that make people excellent at customer support. These skills include:
Intuitive communication and social skills. Social skills and social maturity cannot be emphasized enough. It’s important to meet candidates in person, or at least speak to the on the telephone. If the candidate cannot look you in the eye and shake your hand, make conversation, respond appropriately and display empathy, chances are that he or she will not be a great fit for the job. Take a little time to design a list of questions that will foster conversation. Does the candidate respond appropriately? Single-word answers or too much personal information may mean a poor fit for a call center agent job.
Patience. Customers can become frustrated from being on hold, being transferred or simply having the problem that necessitates a phone call to the contact center in the first place. They’re often in the middle of a bad day. A short-tempered call center agent won’t last long. Ask candidates about their ability to be patient with customers and not take their exasperation personally.
Empathy. The best contact center agents can put themselves in customers’ shoes and show empathy to their problems. The best way to measure empathy in candidates? Show it to them during the recruiting process. Rather than emphasizing how candidates need to fit in to the work culture, emphasize that you welcome diversity and what candidates can add to the workplace.
Autonomy (News - Alert). While some managers might wish to keep a tight leash on call center workers, this seldom leads to good, experienced veteran agents. Agents need to be able to problem-solve on their own, and call center management should encourage this. Rather than put agents in a tight box, show them the parameters rather than hard boundaries, and allow them some autonomy in the problem-solving department. In the long run, you’ll build happier, more engaged and more skilled agents.
A collaborative spirit. While some call centers rely on teamwork far more than others, loner workers may not be a great fit. Agents should be willing to help one another, learn from one another and band together for success. For this reason, a good agent is usually a “people person.”
Edited by Maurice Nagle