Archive for July, 2007
Call Center Agent Interview Advice: Practice and Research
Interviewing for a new job is always scary, especially for a new graduate. With no experience and little information about the job, it is normal to hesitate.
A lot of readers sent their emails asking a list of questions and favorable answers to call center agent interviews. Though it would be easier to give the answers, it would not be fair to you or the company interviewing for the open positions. What we can do is provide some guidance on how to pass.
Research
Someone asked what the qualifications would be to become a call center agent. The generic profile would be dependent on whether this is a voice or non-voice account. You can further expand this into inbound and outbound. Usually HR would list down the general qualifications for your reference but I suggest you research a little bit more.
Call Center Agent: Interview Advice
Thank you for the overwhelming comments and interest in this topic. It only proves that a lot of people, even newly graduates are keen on joining the industry. This is good news. In as much as I would like to answer all your emails individually (which I have to most readers), I would like to summarize what I’ve sent so far.
Q: “I plan to work in a call center. Please give me advice. I want to pass the interview and if there are favorable answers to your questions, please send it over. What are the qualifications?"
Michael has spent the time to answer the questions that have been posted in my article. It is a good start and should work on getting specific answers that you would be comfortable with. He has also listed some witty answers that you shouldn’t say during the interview. I know I’ve interviewed some of them.
What not to say in your job interview
Yesterday I answered some of the easy interview questions that you might get asked when applying for a call center job. Today, I'm going to answer some of the hard ones. I don't know how to answer them seriously, but you still might learn something from them.
Honestly, what do I say in my job interview?
One of our most popular archived posts is Jam Mayer's article Call Center Agent: Interview Questions. The comments section is always filled with notes from aspiring call center agents who want to know how to answer her interview questions.
How do you answer interview questions? Honestly, that's how. If you don't tell the truth about yourself and your abilities, your employer will soon learn the truth. Or they won't give you the chance to prove yourself, because they don't feel they can trust your answers.
Still, here are some of my thoughts about how I would answer Jam's interview questions:
Going the extra mile for customers
Not all our employees were willing to go the second mile for a customer if it kept them from getting in a few extra games of Minesweeper. But a lot were.
Actually, you can play a lot of Minesweeper when you're in queue with a big, impersonal company trying to get help for a customer. But as a department, we tended to make fun of our fellow employees who were too lazy to solve their customers' problems. And I can't count the times that our call center reps ran to my desk with sincere concern for the problems of the caller they had on hold.
Fun at the call center
The saying, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," suggests that work should be mixed with fun.. Ken Wisnefski, president of VendorSeek, has several ideas about how to do that:
A call center’s atmosphere is important. Call center employees communicate with customers on the phone. Happiness needs to be a part of the product. Unfortunately, there is no recipe for happiness; you cannot serve it to your workers throughout the workday. Or can you?
A happy atmosphere needs to be inspired by the management and then will be shared by the employees. Management can brainstorm to come up with ideas on how to make their specific call center’s working environment more fun. It may be coming up with themes each Friday like recognizing your favorite football team, wearing Hawaiian shirts, dressing casually, playing bingo, etc.
Empowering call center employees
Another benefit that customers received from our now-extinct world-class call center was employee autonomy and empowerment. It was rare for me to speak with employees from other call centers who were able to make decisions as quickly and freely as we could.
Record keeping - Document employee performance
When it is time to appraise the agent’s level of success throughout the year, the minimum that a supervisor can do is have a documented record of performance. Employees do not react well to criticism about their work, especially when it is only supported by a supervisor’s vague recollection of a random observation.
If you are a supervisor, you should keep excellent records of your people’s work quality (Call handling, attendance, job knowledge, etc). If you are a call center rep, you should insist on receiving feedback through out the year. No one likes unpleasant surprises…particularly those that affect their pocket book.
Educate your call center team
Ongoing training not only helps call center agents do their job better, but education in itself can improve employee morale. Ken Wisnefski, president of VendorSeek, shares several ideas for increasing the "knowledge base" in your call center:
Frequently educate employees and provide opportunities for future learning through seminars, workshops, classes, etc. These can be held onsite or off the company’s campus. Technology and trends often progress in the call center industry, so employees need to be updated. Employees will enjoy the opportunities to augment their job knowledge.
Servicing customers instead of rules
Flexibility was a value I appreciated in my first now-defunct call center. It gave us a different, even a refreshing, perspective.
Commitment: We could decide if a battle was worth fighting for the company's sake, not for the sake of a rule. That is, if we were spending more money denying a credit on a bill than we would spend issuing the credit, we could issue the credit instead of standing on principle. Many reps stood on principle anyway, but they liked to argue.
