Construct Validity
Construct validity relates to whether a particular psychometric assessment...
section one
5 Interview Questions for Hiring Customer Service Reps
Lead consultant at Test Partnership, Ben Schwencke, explains why interviewing CSRs is essential.
Finding effective customer service representatives is essential to shaping your customers' experiences and overall brand perception. These individuals often serve as the first point of contact between your customers and your business, making their role crucial in influencing customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, identifying the best fit for this position goes beyond simply verifying if a candidate possesses the necessary skills. Additionally, when interviewers rely on conversational interviews, i.e., those without a fixed set of questions, it dramatically reduces the reliability and consistency of the interview process, leading to a decrease in the quality of hires.
Customer Service Reps: Frontline support, addressing inquiries, resolving issues, and ensuring customer satisfaction.
In this article, we will provide a comprehensive guide for recruiters and hiring managers to delve deeper into a candidate's potential. This guide adds structure to the interview stage, outlining a reliable set of questions and corresponding probing queries around which to build an effective interview.
Can you share an example of a difficult customer situation you encountered and how you handled it?
A strong response should involve a specific, challenging situation that showcases the candidate's problem-solving and communication skills. They should clearly articulate how they empathetically listened to the customer, identified the issue, and took necessary actions to resolve it. They should also talk about the conclusion, showing that they follow through to ensure customer satisfaction. Reflecting on what they learned from the experience shows a growth mindset.
A weak answer might be vague, generic, or lack a specific scenario, indicating the candidate might not have extensive customer service experience. If they lack empathy in their response or if they seem to avoid taking responsibility, it could indicate poor customer service skills.
- 1. What was the specific issue the customer was facing?
- 2. What steps did you take to address and resolve the customer's concern?
- 3. How did the situation conclude, and what did you learn from it?
How do you handle situations where you don't immediately know the answer to a customer's question or problem?
A strong response will demonstrate the candidate's resourcefulness, patience, and effective communication skills. They should detail a situation where they didn't immediately know the answer and explain how they managed the customer's expectations while finding a solution. They should also describe the resources they utilize in these situations, like asking a supervisor or referring to a company database, showing their initiative and problem-solving skills.
A weak answer might lack specifics or suggest that the candidate becomes flustered when they don't know an answer. If they make it seem like they would give the customer incorrect information just to provide an immediate answer, it's a red flag, suggesting a lack of honesty and integrity.
- 1. Can you describe a specific instance where this occurred and what you did?
- 2. How do you manage customer expectations in such scenarios?
- 3. What resources do you turn to in order to find solutions?
How do you ensure a positive customer experience, especially in stressful situations or during peak hours?
A strong answer will showcase the candidate's ability to stay calm under pressure and maintain their focus on providing excellent customer service. They should describe specific strategies or methods they use to handle stress and manage their tasks effectively. An example of a high-stress situation where they still delivered excellent customer service will illustrate their resilience and commitment to the role.
A weak answer might lack specifics about how the candidate manages stress, suggesting that they could struggle during peak hours. If they can't provide strategies for maintaining good customer service under pressure, it could indicate they might not perform well in high-stress situations.
- 1. How do you manage your stress and maintain a customer-focused approach?
- 2. What strategies do you use to handle a high volume of inquiries or complaints?
- 3. Can you share a specific instance where you had to deliver exceptional customer service under stress?
Describe a situation where you went above and beyond to satisfy a customer’s needs.
A strong answer will provide a detailed instance where the candidate demonstrated extra effort to address a customer's need. The candidate should be able to describe the situation, the actions they took, and the positive outcome. This will illustrate their commitment to delivering exceptional customer service. It would be a plus if they can share a positive feedback they received from the customer or their superiors.
A weak answer might be generic or lack a specific example, suggesting that the candidate may not typically go above and beyond for customers. If they are unable to describe the steps they took or fail to highlight the impact of their actions, it might indicate a lack of initiative or problem-solving skills.
- 1. What was the customer's issue, and what made you decide to go the extra mile?
- 2. What actions did you take to exceed the customer's expectations?
- 3. What was the outcome and the customer's response?
How do you handle feedback and criticism from customers?
A strong response should demonstrate the candidate's resilience, open-mindedness, and growth mindset. They should give a specific example of when they received negative feedback, showing how they responded professionally and used it as an opportunity for improvement. Reflecting on what they learned from the experience and how it improved their customer service approach will make their answer even stronger.
A weak answer might suggest that the candidate takes negative feedback personally, which may indicate a lack of resilience or emotional maturity. If they cannot provide a specific example or fail to describe how they've used feedback for self-improvement, it may suggest they are not open to learning or improving.
- 1. Can you share a specific instance where you received negative feedback from a customer?
- 2. How did you respond in the moment and afterwards?
- 3. What did you learn from this feedback, and how did you apply it to your future work?
section two
Limitations of interview-only recruitment processes for customer service reps
Compared to other roles, customer service occupations are quite well suited to the interview assessment method. Naturally, interviews allow assessors to evaluate a candidate’s people skills, communication ability, and general manner, all of which are key to performance in customer service. However, interviews are extremely ineffective at measuring those intrapersonal components of the role, i.e., work ethic, resilience, creativity, and adaptability. Although interviewers can ask questions that supposedly pertain to these competencies, in reality, they are still just evaluating their interpersonal skills, as these competencies aren’t advantageous in an interview setting.
Additionally, interviews are not scalable selection tools and cannot be used with high volumes of applicants. For example, if a typical interview requires 2 hours of preparation, planning, organizing, conducting, and the feeding back to the candidate, 100 interviews will literally require 200 hours of work, which quickly becomes untenable. Instead, organizations often rely on CV or resume sifting to create shortlists, screening candidates based on the quality of their written CVs. In the age of ChatGPT, this approach offers no predictive validity at all and instead simply penalizes candidates for writing their CVs themselves. It also creates a massive opportunity cost for the employer, as CV sifting will almost certainly screen out the best candidates, particularly if you are creating very concise shortlists from a large applicant pool.
Instead, we strongly recommend psychometric assessments and online ability tests during the shortlisting process. This allows you to measure the specific traits, competencies, and abilities which matter in customer service, creating high-quality shortlists for subsequent interviews. These assessments are substantially more scalable than both CV sifting and interviewing for shortlisting purposes. Consequently, these assessments can dramatically reduce the administrative burden placed on the HR team while simultaneously improving the quality of hire tremendously. For more information on our suite of assessments, please contact us directly or register for a free trial.
