Best Practices when Hiring for a VOC Team

Written by KOVA Corp

VOC, or Voice of the Customer, is an invaluable form of feedback for a contact center, and a major determining factor in the VOC is the customer’s first encounter with your customer service professionals (CSPs).  These customer service professionals are ambassadors of your company’s brand, and despite innovations in automation, they still play an important role in customer satisfaction.

However, as customers become better informed about their options, a CSP requires a wider skill set than simply being able to read a script while navigating a computer program.  Agents need to be able to communicate, listen, read between the lines, ask good questions, and be personable and empathetic.  Though some of these skills can be taught through training and coaching programs, an employer can also recruit agents who already have a nuanced sensibility for the interpersonal.

A common mistake that companies make is to use one formula for hiring any new employee, rather than taking into consideration the needs of different positions.  This can be time consuming and frustrating as prospective employees are subjected to a long series of assessments that aren’t really relevant to their ability to perform well practically in a particular job.  One alternative is to use virtual interviewing technology.

Virtual interviewing technology is an online cloud-based software application that records applicant’s responses to a sequence of pertinent questions and can be used immediately after applicants turn in their applications.  The accessibility and ease of this software translates to flexibility and efficiency.  Instead of spending hours conducting interviews over the telephone, recruiters can simply evaluate and review applicants’ recorded submissions.

In addition to ease, take into account the importance of speed.  Once an application has been submitted and a prospective CSP has completed the interview process, it is not unusual for it to take several weeks before a job offer is formally extended and training begins.  In these weeks of waiting, a candidate may receive a different job offer and agree, even if it is not ideal, because it is at hand and appears more secure.  Thus, to avoid the possibility of losing choice applicants, prioritize being swift as you make your final call.

Another way to increase the number of star candidates on your team is by reaching out to a wider demographic of potential employees.  You may already be making the most of sites like Monster and CareerBuilder, but you can also reach out to existing customers through social media channels, like Facebook or LinkedIn.  Existing customers can make the best customer service professionals because they are familiar with the brand and in touch with the perspective of a customer.

Acknowledge that the best interviewees don’t always make the best workers, and see if you can work backwards.  Who are your best CSPs currently?  What qualities did they present in the interview process?  Can you see the same signs in any of your current applicants?  This can take the form of an intuitive process or an extensive statistical study.

Finally, when matching a candidate to a job, take into account whether it’s a good fit not only between the candidate and the company, but the candidate’s skills, interests, and temperament and the requirements of the job.  Each job will draw on different personality traits; if an employer can make these connections, the stage is set for exceptional performance.

As VOC results become a more reliable measure of agent and company performance, the recruiting and hiring of CSPs who are well-rounded and sharp listeners will become an art and science of its own.  And, in the process, KOVA’s own Audiolog can prove helpful in recording, monitoring, and evaluating calls to better figure out what does and doesn’t work.

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