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Can you give us some suggestions on how to enhance the agent interviewing process in our contact center so that it encompasses the multi-channel nature of the job?

10/5/2015

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Question
Can you give us some suggestions on how to enhance the agent interviewing process in our contact center so that it encompasses the multi-channel nature of the job?

Answer

Hiring remains a critical and challenging task for contact centers. Everything works better with the right people. While it’s fine to intensively train new employees, it’s a lot easier if they come in with the right attitude and aptitude. Contact center managers should work with human resources to create detailed job descriptions (JDs) that specify daily responsibilities, educational background and prior experience. They should also develop a two-step interview process. The first phase is to interview people, using the channels in which they are going to be working. If you’re hiring people who are going to be asked to handle phone, email, chat and SMS, create a process that tests their skills interacting in each of these channels. If they pass the initial screening, invite them in for an interview. If they are virtual agents, conduct the “in-person” portion using Skype, WebEx or another video-type product. It is important for the candidate to be personable, professional and clearly interested in the job.

For the recruitment effort to be successful, contact center managers and HR should create an interview process that incorporates an initial test, a “channel” interview and an “in-person” follow-up. If designed properly, one person can handle all aspects of the interview, instead of involving many managers, which is more time-consuming and complicated. Hiring criteria vary depending on the nature of the job, but should address the following:

  1. Capability – seeing if the person has the aptitude to succeed in a particular operating environment
  2. Communication skills – ensuring that candidates can communicate clearly and concisely in each channel (speaking and/or writing)
  3. Typing/keyboard – ensuring that they can get the job done in a timely and accurate manner
  4. Math – making sure that people can look at numbers and make sense of them; agents can use calculators, but they should know the basics
  5. Multi-tasking abilities – seeing how easily the person moves from one activity to another
  6. Decision-making and troubleshooting – assessing each candidate’s ability to evaluate information, draw appropriate conclusions and handle tough situations
  7. Customer service – determining if the candidate is wired to help customers, sell or collect (depending on the purpose of the contact center)

The hardest criterion to evaluate is whether candidates are service-oriented and suited to helping people. We suggest that enterprises use behavior-based questions to assess whether or not candidates are likely to go out of their way to help customers. A list of questions should be created to ask candidates about how they would handle a variety of tough customer or interpersonal challenges. Interviewers should be able to choose questions from the list, as necessary, depending on the candidate and the job for which they are interviewing.