Hiring the right customer service agents helps you get new customers, maintain loyal customers, and grow your business. But what should you look for when you’re hiring a new customer service agent? At Incept, we’re experts in outsourced customer service. So here are a few insights that we’ve found over the years as we’ve grown our team of expert customer support representatives.
1. Passions That Align With Your Cause And Your Business
First and foremost, we recommend that you look for workers who align with your cause, your business, and your passion. For example, if you run a health and wellness company, you could look for employees who are passionate about fitness and knowledgeable about the subject. This increases employee effectiveness, retention, and more.
At Incept, we’ve found that hiring workers who fit the culture – but may need more training – has been more effective than targeting experienced call center or customer support employees who may not be the best culture fit.
2. Willingness To Join Your Team For The Long Term
If you want the best workers, you need to find workers who are willing to see customer service as a career path. You don’t want customer service reps who see their role as just a “temporary” role, or who are looking for seasonal employment. For this reason, we don’t recommend hiring people who have bounced between lots of customer service jobs or who have not moved up in their role over time.
In the same way, though, you’re responsible for making sure that there is a path forward and upward for high-performing workers at your business. If a customer service agent feels that they have no further goal ahead of them – such as a raise, a supervisory position, or other career progression – they may not be as committed to your workplace, and they may leave, even if they're a top performer.
3. Drive And Ability To Learn On The Job
As briefly mentioned in the first section of this blog, at Incept, we prefer to focus on employees who are passionate about people and our purpose. That’s true even if some of our recruits don’t have that much experience working in contact centers.
As long as these people are trainable and are driven to learn on the job, it’s easy to turn even a rookie customer service rep into a dependable and well-rounded worker. So we recommend looking for team members who are motivated, and are willing to put in the time and work to learn through on-the-job training and in hands-on situations.
4. A Good Combination Of “Soft Skills” And Technological Ability
“Soft skills” like communication, problem solving, strong listening abilities, and teamwork are all critical for customer support representatives. Finding recruits with strong soft skills can be difficult, but it’s definitely worth your time.
However, soft skills alone are not enough for the modern customer support representative. Their soft skills must also be matched with a reasonable level of tech savviness. Solid phone, computer, and software skills provide a good baseline – and training and hands-on practice can build on these skills to create an effective and versatile skill-set.
5. Networks That Can Bring You More High-Performing Customer Service Agents
At Incept, we’ve found that a significant number of our best customer service agents come from employee referrals. If you’re able to hire a worker who performs well, fits with your culture, and is happy with their jobs, you may be able to continue filling out your team with referrals.
If a rep really loves their job, they're sure to find like-minded friends who will also be a good fit. It never hurts to ask your high-performing reps if they know anyone who may be a good fit at your company – especially people who may not normally apply for contact center or customer service jobs.
Need The Best Customer Service Agents Now? Contact Incept!
At Incept, we specialize in outsourced B2B and B2C customer support, and we work with only the best customer service agents. Among other awards, we’ve been recognized as a Top Workplace in NE Ohio for 10 out of 11 years.
If your business is expanding and you’re interested in outsourcing customer support, our team is the best choice – get in touch now to schedule a consultation, learn more, and see how we can help your business thrive.