Keeping your customers happy is an essential key to business growth. The modern-day customer has very high expectations of any business they patronize. According to a survey by HubSpot, 82% of customers expect an answer to their question within 30 minutes of sending their query. Businesses that fail to keep up with this and several other related expectations will end up with unhappy customers.
As the owner or manager of an SME business, you’ll probably be in charge of handling the day-to-day customer service tasks of your business for the first few months or years of running your business. These tasks include answering phone calls, replying to customer inquiries, tracking orders, and handling complaints when they occur. But as your business continues to grow and attract more patronage, you’ll have to hire customer service representatives for the job.
Your customer service representative is the the face of your business. They interface with customers and can make your business look good or bad depending on who you hire. This is why the process of hiring someone to fill this role should not be taken lightly.
Smart hiring for a customer service role requires you to equip yourself with essential information about the hiring process and how to pick the right person for the job. In this post, we’ll explain all you need to know about hiring a customer service representative for your business.
Define the Responsibilities of Your Customer Service Representatives
What exactly will a customer service representative do for your business? This is one of the most critical questions to answer when hiring for this role. Every business is unique and so are their customer service needs.
The core responsibility of a customer service representatives is to interact with customers on behalf of your business or organization. These interactions mainly involve resolving issues and answering inquiries. Customer support professionals are expected to embody the company’s values and brand image while dispensing these primary responsibilities.
Before you go ahead with hiring for this role, you must have a clear idea of what you expect your customer support rep to deliver. Defining the responsibilities from the onset is the key to holding successful interviews and picking the right candidate. For instance, your expectations for the role will determine the type of questions to ask during interviews to assess the candidate’s skillsets.
Some of the key responsibilities you might expect your customer service representative to handle include:
- Managing inbound and outbound calls from customers to answer their questions or address their concerns and complaints
- Replying to customer emails
- Managing and interacting with customers on social media channels
- Providing technical support and assistance.
The exact responsibilities of your customer support rep depend on how your business is structured and how you intend to manage customer interactions. For instance, most companies with traditional call centers only need their customer service reps to handle inbound calls and resolve customer issues over the phone.
However, some businesses now use other digital communication channels such as live chat, emails and social media channels to handle interactions with customers. For such businesses, you’ll need your customer service rep to have the skills and experience to work with these platforms.
In summary, you must be able to predict what your customer interactions will likely entail and pick reps that can handle such interactions effectively.
Define the Skills the Customer Service Representative Role Requires
Customer service representatives need different skills to fulfill their day-to-day responsibilities. This is why hiring begins with a proper definition of what you’ll need your customer service team to do for you. Based on these responsibilities, you’ll be able to determine the specific skills that the individuals you intend to hire for the team must have. Generally, customer service skills can be divided into soft and hard skills.
What Are Customer Service Hard Skills?
This refers to specific technical abilities your customer service employees must possess to do their jobs. Hard skills are typically tangible and measurable. They can also be easily learned through education, training, or practice. Some of the technical skills you’ll need individuals on your customer support team to have include:
Computer Skills
Customer service representatives have to work with computers, mobile devices, and various software applications. A good candidate for this role must have the basic computer skills needed to navigate these devices and the software they’re likely to use. Some of the most basic computer skills to have include Microsoft Office Skills, email communication, and collaboration or communication software.
Data Entry and Analysis
As they interact with customers, service reps should be able to collect and record vital information about their interactions with customers. They may also need to analyze the data they collect in order to generate useful insights and better understand customer behavior. The insights derived from this analysis will guide their future interactions with customers.
Knowledge of Customer Relationship Management Systems or Helpdesk Software
Although this mainly depends on the CRM system you use, you may also consider candidates with knowledge of other related platforms since most of these software function the same way.
Sales Skills
The Customer service team is expected to work in tandem with the sales/marketing team in your Organization. Consequently, it makes sense to hire customer service professionals that can leverage cross-selling and upselling opportunities to bring in more sales for your company and guide customers effectively through the buying process from start to finish.
What Are Customer Service Soft Skills?
Soft customer service skills refer to unquantifiable, non-technical skills that an individual needs to possess to deliver their customer service responsibilities effectively. Most soft skills are interpersonal skills that can directly impact an individual’s interaction with customers or other members of their team.
Your customer-facing employees need to have certain soft skills to navigate conversations with customers, understand their needs, and respond to their queries in a way that makes them feel heard and satisfied about the service they have received. Some of the most important customer service soft skills include:
Active Listening
A key part of a customer service rep’s work is listening to customer complaints, understanding them, and taking action to resolve them appropriately. The right candidate for this role must demonstrate this skill whether they’re interacting with customers via phone calls or through other channels.
Empathy & Emotional Intelligence
A customer service professional should be able to relate to the customer’s emotions or concerns and show genuine interest in solving them. Emotional intelligence is an essential behavioral trait that can endear a new team member to customers once they start interacting with them.
Ability to Communicate Confidently in Person/on the Phone
Most customer support reps will interact with customers over the phone or via chat channels. An ability to communicate clearly while working remotely to resolve issues is a valuable skill for this role. Strong communication skills is an essential skill for every excellent customer service professional. The ideal candidate demonstrates excellent written and oral communication when troubleshooting issues, providing directions, or addressing customer needs.
Conflict Resolution
Customer service teams are often caught in the crossfire of disputes between customers and other arms of the business. A good customer support rep should be able to leverage their communication skills to resolve conflicts and even turn them into positive customer experience.
Negotiation Skills
Sometimes, customer support reps have to negotiate terms for both the business and the customer in question. An ability to negotiate between all the parties involved and come out with the most favorable terms is a valuable skill for every member of your customer service team.
Time Management Skills
Excellent customer service must be prompt and timely. A good rep should be good at troubleshooting issues and figuring out how to solve problems in the fastest way possible.
Industry & Product Knowledge
The customer service specialist you hire should have in-depth knowledge related to your specific product and the industry you serve. This is a necessary skill set to provide accurate assistance to customers.
After highlighting the general soft and hard skills your customer service representatives should possess, you must also identify the most important must-haves that are most relevant to their specific responsibilities. For instance, you may need your customer support team to also double as sales people or assist the marketing team. This means they’ll need to have sales and marketing skills in addition to their core support skills.
Identify the Critical Behavioral Traits You Need
In addition to the skills highlighted above, the individual to be hired for a customer care role should have certain innate behaviors relevant to their work. Generally, a good customer service professional should be patient, collaborative, adaptive, analytical, conscientious, process-oriented, and always willing to help. These behavioral traits contribute to the overall customer experience.
While these behavioral traits can be difficult to assess when you’re seeking to hire a customer service specialist, asking the right questions during the interview stage of the hiring process can help you judge which candidate will be the most fitting for the role based on their behavioral traits.
Draft a Detailed Customer Service Job Description
The job description highlights the duties, responsibilities, and requirements for the customer service role you’re hiring for. In addition to stating what you’re expecting from the candidate, the job description will also highlight what your business has to offer.
If you have followed all the steps highlighted above, drafting a detailed customer service job post should be very easy. Since every organization will have unique customer service needs, customer service job descriptions will also vary slightly in each case.
As a general guide, the job description for a customer care professional should reflect what you’re looking for and what the role entails. Some of the details to include in your customer service job description include:
The Job Brief
This is a short overview of the company and the position you’re hiring for
Responsibilities
This highlights the key responsibilities the candidates will be expected to perform if they’re eventually picked for the role.
Skills and Qualifications
List the soft and technical skills that a candidate must possess to qualify for the role
Salary and Benefits
The job description should indicate what your company offers in terms of salary and other benefits specifically for this position.
Where to Recruit From?
Knowing where to look is a crucial part of recruiting for any role including customer service representatives. You can simply put up a listing on your website detailing the role you’re hiring for, core responsibilities, and skills needed to fill that role. However, for a wide reach, you may have to use other recruitment channels as well. Some of the options to consider include:
Flier Posting
You can use both paper and digital flyers to spread awareness about the available position and attract prospective candidates within the community.
Work with Staffing Agencies
To hire customer service reps, you can work with a staffing agency to help scout the best talent and pick the most proficient candidate for the customer service role. One benefit of this is that the recruitment agency handles the entire process from interviews to screening all the prospective candidates. That way you get to save time while also avoiding stress.
Specialized Job Boards and Recruitment Websites
Post the details of the position on job boards or recruitment platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, and so on.
Employee Referrals
You can leverage your existing workforce to get qualified individuals for the customer service role. Ask your employees to recommend individuals who are likely to align with your company’s goals and values.
Social Media
Social media is another viable means of recruiting for your customer service team. You can put out an open call for customer service reps on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (X platform), detailing the specific skills and experience needed to fill this role.
Conduct Interviews with Candidates
Narrow down your list of potential candidates for your customer service team based on their skills and relevant experience as highlighted in their resume and cover letter. While you don’t need a lot of experience to work in customer service, excellent candidates with more experience and proven competencies will be easier to train for the specific tasks you want them to perform.
After narrowing down your list of potential candidates this way, invite the most suitable candidates for an interview to determine if they’ll be a good fit or not. During this interview, you get to lay out all your expectations for the customer service role while the candidates answer questions that will help assess if they’re the right fit.
Sample Interview Questions to Ask a Customer Service Rep Candidate
Candidates can write whatever they like on their resumes, the only way to tell if they’re a good fit is to access them based on their answers to interview questions. This stage of the application process will help you assess how well the candidate can field and resolve customer problems. You should also seek to ascertain their behavior or attitudes while talking with clients, handling customer issues and interacting with other members of the customer support team.
Here are some common interview questions you can ask a potential candidate:
- What does excellent customer service look like to you?
- Discuss a scenario in your past job when you had to work with a customer to troubleshoot a difficult problem.
- Tell me about a time you had to deal with an extremely difficult or angry customer. How did you leverage your communication skills in this situation?
- “Describe a complex issue you helped a customer solve. What was the problem, and how did you arrive at the solution?”
- What was the best customer support team you ever worked on?
Generally, we recommend a mix of behavioral, skill-based, and knowledge-based questions to assess the right candidates for the job. You also need to understand the motivation, values, and work ethic of the candidates to pick the most ideal new hire for this position.
Qualities to Look out for in an Excellent Customer Service Representative
As a business owner looking to hire a customer service representative, hiring the right person for the job has to be the top priority as the wrong candidate can be even more damaging for your business. While it might be difficult to find potential employees who check every box, the following are some of the most essential qualities a customer service representative should have.
Ability to Manage Challenging Customers
Sometimes, customers can be a handful to manage. Even the most skilled customer service team member may crack under pressure from rude or overly difficult customers. The right candidate should have the right mix of soft skills and behavioral traits needed to handle complex situations. An ideal customer support team member must have strong communication skills and should be able resolve conflict or attend to complaints in a way that leaves customers satisfied with your quality of customer service.
Ability to Handle a High Influx of Customer Queries
Your ideal candidate should demonstrate an ability to manage a high volume of customer queries during downtimes, peak seasons, and other high-traffic periods. In addition to staying calm during such situations, your customer service representative should also be able to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction while navigating new challenges and delivering prompt responses to queries.
Staying Informed About the Company
A sound knowledge of your company, products, and services is a basic requirement to be a part of your customer support team. Anyone you hire for the role must demonstrate a willingness to stay up-to-date with you company policy, what you do and how you do it. They must also be well-versed about any new software, latest product or services your offer. This way, they’ll be able to provide accurate and valuable information to customers at all times.
Ability to Cultivate Customer Loyalty
Customer service representatives need people skills more than anything else. Look out for candidates who understand the significance of building long-lasting relationships with customers and have the skills needed to achieve this. Having such people on your team will contribute to your goal of building customer loyalty and maintaining a positive image for your business.
Ability to Handle Sensitive Information
In most organizations, the customer representative is a privileged position. That’s because they often have unfettered access to sensitive customer data. The right candidate for this role must demonstrate a strong sense of professionalism and responsibility when handling this information.
Conclusion
As you can see, hiring a customer service representative for your business is a long and potentially complex process. However, if you get it right, you’ll be landing yourself a reliable professional who can handle your customer interactions effectively to drive desirable business results.
One of the best strategies to achieve this is by leveraging helpful online platforms like Cloudhire. As a small business owner or C-suite startup manager looking to hire a customer support rep for your business, Cloudhire simplifies the process of hiring new employees working remotely for your business while also providing a risk-free onboarding experience when you hire a new team member from the candidate pool.
The platform provides talent sourcing, skill vetting, training, background checks, and other essential services needed to mitigate hiring risk and land the most exceptional talents based on your unique business requirements. Check out the Cloudhire platform or contact us to learn more about this platform.
