How to Recruit Your Ideal CSRs In Today's Digital World
With Amanda Law, Principal Consultant at Cultivate Recruitment
Show Notes
Amanda Law is a Recruiter and Principal Consultant at Cultivate Recruitment. She has more than 11 years’ experience in the recruitment industry, and has spent most of that time recruiting for contact centres. Her expertise means she’s got some incredibly useful tips when it comes to recruiting your perfect contact centre agents in the current environment.
Top 3 Tips:
If you can, run a blind recruitment process - which means not reviewing CVs - and trust in your interview process. You’ll avoid discounting people who are fantastic for the role (10:33).
When it comes to interview questions:
Break down your competency-based questions into parts to avoid confusing candidates. For example, instead of asking "tell me about a time when you've had a difficult customer that you had to deal with. What was the situation? What was the outcome? How did you feel about that?", ask each part separately (12:08).
To find out what a candidate’s motivations are, ask them to tell a workplace story. You’ll be able to find out what makes them tick (13:41).
Make the candidate experience a stand-out one, that’s smooth and fun. Then you’ll have the best chance of them choosing the role you’re offering, as opposed to them choosing one at another organisation (14:50).
You'll Learn:
What changes have happened in contact centres over the last few years, that have turned the skill requirements of your call centre agents upside down (01:56).
The common mistake many contact centre leaders make when it comes to candidates’ salary expectations, and how to easily solve it (06:42).
The key things that your candidates are looking for in your business - that you might not be aware of - which determine whether they want to work for you (16:39).
Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-law-b45143a4/
Get your free copy of Game On here: https://bravatrak.com/game-on-book (you’ll also get the latest podcast episodes sent straight to your inbox).
Transcript
Blair Stevenson (00:00)
Welcome to the Secrets to Contact Center Success podcast, connecting you with the latest and greatest tips from the best and brightest minds in the industry.
I'm Blair Stevenson, founder of BravaTrak, the High-Performance Coaching System for Contact Centres. It helps you to boost results and hit your targets, without burning people out. Guaranteed to increase your centres' performance by at least 11% within six months, or it's completely free.
Today, I am joined by Amanda Law. Who's a Principal Consultant for contact centre recruitment at Cultivate Recruitment. Amanda is going to add some real value today as she has some super useful tips on what to consider when recruiting CSRs (Customer Service Reps) for a contact centre role in the current environment. So, welcome Amanda.
Amanda Law (00:46)
Thanks Blair. Nice to be here.
Blair Stevenson (00:49)
Great to have you here. Just as a starting point, tell us a bit about your background and your expertise.
Amanda Law (00:55)
So I've got over 11 years' experience in recruitment, so that's kind of covered over business support roles, but predominantly in contact center. I've done a lot of sales recruitment, call center, obviously in the customer service side of things as well.
So I've seen a lot of change in contact centers as the years have rolled by, and also I do the senior roles as well. So your specialist roles, workforce planning, contact center management as well. So quite a broad spectrum across business support and contact center.
Blair Stevenson (01:29)
Cool, cool. One of the things you and I have been talking about recently is that digital channels are now handling customers' straightforward needs. And so what that means in many contact centres is that CSRs are having to deal with more complex situations. And I was just curious about what you see are the skills and attributes that are now required of candidates for CSR roles?
Amanda Law (01:56)
Yeah, absolutely. And that's changed a lot right over the last few years because it's gone really from more order taking to upselling and cross-selling on each call and really maximizing the human side of the role. So I definitely say what's ramped up is the interpersonal skills, really great communication skills.
And also on the resilience side of things is really key. You know, the contact center agent role on the front line is an extremely hard role. You're dealing with a lot of complaints, a lot of issues that come up. I mean, most of the time, if you think about when you call your provider for something, there's an issue that's come up, and then maybe a call waiting time. So by the time you actually get your customer on the phone, they could be upset or angry or in a difficult situation.
So having empathy is really important and also that resilience to be able to deal with call after call of that nature is extremely important. Yeah.
Blair Stevenson (02:54)
Yeah. So it requires much higher emotional intelligence, and even better communication skills.
Amanda Law (03:03)
Absolutely. Yeah. That's really critical because the automation is picking up a lot of the more basic queries now, and you can go online or use chats. So when you actually get customer on the phone, if you're on the front line on calls, um, you need to be able to problem solve. You need to be able to get to the heart of what the customer maybe isn't saying, as well as what they are saying. Yeah.
Blair Stevenson (03:27)
Cool. So how do you go about sourcing, recruiting the ideal candidates for a CSR role?
Amanda Law (03:34)
Yeah, well, I mean, I think that comes down to having a really good sourcing strategy. So you've got to keep that really wide. So I mean, I use a lot of proactive sourcing techniques, so I work with external partnerships, where candidates, like maybe you've gone on a call center course. And then they'll come through by that channel. Obviously utilizing all the job boards and LinkedIn as well is obviously critical.
But it's more kind of about talent pooling now. So because our recruitment requirements are so quick, it's such a quick turnaround now, we really need to have those talent pools ready to go. So I'm always kind of branding and marketing and advertising to get people coming in to those channels.
So across kind of customer service, sales and service, and all those sorts of other different channels collections and that kind of thing. And just keeping those pools fresh and active so that when a job order comes in, we can mobilize really quickly for the requirements.
Blair Stevenson (04:31)
Right, right, right. So I'm just curious about how important do you think it is to look for people with previous contact center experience versus taking a wider of view in terms of other channels they might've worked in given this need for communication and empathy?
Amanda Law (04:49)
Well this is the challenge that we have in taking a job brief when a client actually wants to have someone with contact center experience versus being a bit more open to the background. Because with the fact that you've got, you know, people with contact center experience, that's great and yes, they can come in and hit the ground running, but they obviously are looking for more money.
So if it is more of an entry level role, I'm personally much more of a fan of just keeping it really open and looking at the person that you've got in front of you and the candidate's skills and background, their attributes, their potential.
Because obviously if you've got good training in place, then you're able to actually upskill those people to do a good job. So I find that contact center agents can come from all sorts of backgrounds and do a great job, whether it's retail or hospitality or any sort of face-to-face customer experience. Even an office role where they've had to do an element of phone calls, emails.
And as long as you've got a robust interview process where you're picking up all of the different skills that are required to hit the job criteria, then I think that you could be really open.
I mean, and if you do get a candidate that's come from a contact center, that's great. But you know, it just depends. If you're going to go for that caliber of candidate, you need to have like really good career pathways in place. It needs to be a step up for them rather than a sidestep.
Blair Stevenson (06:24)
Ah, okay. So it sounds like one potential mistake you see in briefs from contact center leaders is they're thinking too narrowly in terms of past experience. What other mistakes do you see in briefs from contact center leaders in terms of the recruitment of CSRs?
Amanda Law (06:42)
It's really around that salary expectation piece, to be honest. I mean, if you've got a role where you're looking to offer say $43,000 to $45,000 - which would be that kind of entry level type role - a lot of clients will say candidates need contact center experience.
But it doesn't really match what's in the market, because when you've got a candidate that's experienced in the contact center, they're generally looking for $50,000 plus. So there's a big gap there, basically. So I find that's a bit of a challenge.
And another common mistake with sales recruitment, for example, is insisting that there's previous sales experience as well. Because again, is it going to be more of a sidestep for that candidate that's coming in with sales experience or is it actually a step up?
So again, I'm much more of a fan of kind of taking someone with potential that's worked to KPIs, that's worked to targets, that comes in with that amazing attitude and then they can just be trained.
Blair Stevenson (07:48)
Okay. So what you're suggesting is to look for the opportunity for people to step up, and think about the reality of the situation where you're demanding a higher level of skill from people in the current environment.
Amanda Law (08:08)
Yeah. And it's all about attitude, you know, and that's what you determined through the interview process is 'what's this person motivated by? And is it aligned to our company and our job?' And if the two are aligned - and they can work through your career pathways learning and development - then that's going to be a match, really.
Blair Stevenson (08:27)
Yeah. Cool. Cool. So once a contact center manager has those new hires in place, what do you think they need to be bear in mind to get the best out of them?
Amanda Law (08:40)
Yeah, so I would say that you have to really keep in mind in the interview process the career development and the opportunity that you're selling to the candidate, because there's a lot of competition out there for candidates that are looking for work, and why would they pick your opportunity over another?
So I'd definitely say invest in learning and development training, have a coaching and development mentality in your business, have supportive leadership that's actually going to take your new people through their career with your business.
So I would say the shelf life of a contact center agent that wants to progress, obviously, is about 18 months to two years in a role. So if you're going to have that person for that long, but you want to retain them within the business, what else can you offer that person?
So that's a really big piece around where can they go from contact center? So to really see the contact center as a stepping stone into the business, because I've seen a lot of candidates grow up through the business.
A lot of my clients actually started on the phones, and have become fantastic managers because they really actually understand what's the front line. They know the business, they know the customers, they know the products well.
So I think that's really key is to really invest in your people. Especially nowadays when people are really motivated by obviously earning what they're due, career development, and learning potential as well. So that's really critical as well.
Blair Stevenson (10:16)
Yeah. Cool. Cool. So perhaps to wrap up, I'm just curious what you would call your top three tips for contact center leaders to both identify and secure top talent for the contact centers.
Amanda Law (10:29)
Yeah. Okay. Well, I had a good think about this. My top three tips:
Tip 1 (10:33)
If you can, run a blind recruitment process - which basically means not reviewing CVs - and trust in your interview process. This really removes the bias from looking at peoples' CVs and discounting them, because essentially what it takes to be a great contact center agent is obviously fantastic phone manner, really good communication skills, good written skills as well.
And you know, there's the softer skills that we talked around resilience and the motivation of why they want to be in that role. So if you can, really look at your interview process and make sure that's getting the right people for you.
There's so there's so many reasons why I have to discount people based on their CV, you know, according to a job brief. So it might be looking at their tenure, it might be looking at their experience and their background.
Whereas, to be honest, you could find an absolutely amazing candidate that would love the job that's been a landscape gardener. Why not? You know, they've been talking to people, they've been in the customer service role, they've had to sell, you know, they're used to being out-and-about talking to people.
So if their motivation is right, why are we discounting them - just because they don't have office experience - if they really want it? So my advice there would be to really look at the interview process, make sure it's working right, and trying to do it blind. And that just removes all bias from the process as well. That'd be my number one tip.
Tip 2 (12:08)
And then the other thing is around competency-based interview questions. So I really see that people don't necessarily always ask these correctly. So when you've got a competency-based interview question, it could have three parts to it, and it can be very confusing for a candidate, which can actually make that interview performance - If you like - look bad. But actually they're just maybe not experienced in answering questions in that way.
So if you've got a question, the full question is, "tell me about a time when you've had a difficult customer that you've had to deal with. What was the situation? What was the outcome and how did you feel about that?" That's actually got four parts to it. So when you ask the question, you need to actually ask it in stages.
It's the job of an interviewer to probe the candidate to get the right answer out of the candidate, really, and put them at ease. So we don't want to interrogate them. We don't want to put them in their worst case scenario, because once they've been trained in their confident on phone, they're going to be flying.
So we want to kind of see them at their best in the interview as well. So you have to ask it in stages. So "tell me about a time where you've dealt with a really difficult customer". Let them answer. "Okay. Right. And how did that make you feel?" Right. "And what was the result?"
I mean, they might tell you all of that in one go, and then you might not have to probe them, but set them up for success, you know, so they don't fall apart in the interview, would be another really good tip.
And also make sure you're asking the right questions as well, especially around that motivation piece. So a couple of good questions to ask when you want to see really, what is the person motivated for?
Say you've got a sales role, and you want to see if what really switches the lights on for them is hitting their targets, you want to be asking something around like, "what's your biggest achievement been in your career to date?" And you're looking for it to be something around hitting targets or hitting KPIs, or making their bonus, you know?
And then, you know, you can also ask them in terms of knowing what makes a good week for them and what gets them ticking at work as well, which is what motivates us really, is to say, you know, "Okay. Think about a time where you had a great week, what happened in the week, what really happened to make it a great week?" And get a story out of them.
So then you can find out like, what makes them tick, you know, that kind of thing. So that'd be another tip around the interview questions.
Tip 3 (14:50)
And then my last tip really is around making the candidate experience as smooth, enjoyable, fun even, like a standout experience for the candidate that's easy going. I mean, there are a lot of steps in contact center interview processes, because there is a lot of testing involved and there are role-plays and there are team exercises, there are interviews. These are all very stressful for candidates.
And I think we forget when we get into this rhythm of just interview after interview after interview, that this is actually a really full-on experience to people. And some people might not have had an interview for years. So these are all really big, big things for candidates, so make it as easy as possible.
Because your candidate that you've got stepping through all these hoops ready to get your job might be going down the road to a start-up and having one interview that's more of a kind of cultural based, relaxed chat.
So again this point of why are they going to choose your role over another role? And if the other interview process is easier and less steps, maybe they're going to want to do that. And if you are doing lots of steps to your interview process, make sure that you are explaining the why, the how, the timeframe, where they're at in the process, so that they're not just kind of feeling like, okay, “why am I doing this testing? What's this showing?”
So always be over-communicating to your candidates and supporting them through the process.
Blair Stevenson (16:29)
Yeah, it's a good point. Because we often think that we're choosing them and forget that equally, they're choosing whether they want to work for us.
Amanda Law (16:39)
Totally. An interview is really a two way street. And I say this to my candidates, when they're going to interview and I say, you know, “you're interviewing them as well. You're wanting to make sure that this next job is the right role for you.” Especially when people are looking for a career, you know, they want to stay somewhere long term.
I mean, a lot of things that clients don't realize is especially as we've got, you know, the millennials and things coming up now, they're really looking at the top table as well. You know, they're looking at the websites, looking at the leadership team.
They want diversity, they want to see a company that they can be proud to work for, you know, that's sustainable. That's also going to look after them. That they can see a future with.
But you know, really most importantly, it's around that learning piece. I mean, people want to be constantly developing, even if they are in the same role for years, they want to be learning.
Blair Stevenson (17:35)
I agree. Yeah, our data is showing that of the top two drivers of employee engagement, one of those is development opportunities being driven by a person's immediate manager. In the case of CSRs, their team leaders.
Okay. Great. So that's all we've got time for today. So Amanda, thank you very much for coming on the show. You've given us some really useful insights into what we need to bear in mind when recruiting CSRs.
Now for listeners, you'll find a link to the show notes in the episode description below. And if you'd like to connect with Amanda on LinkedIn, you'll also find a link to her LinkedIn profile in the description below as well (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-law-b45143a4/).
Now, if you've tuned in today, looking for a way to boost results and hit your targets - without burning your people out - have I got an offer for you. You're welcome to a free copy of my book Game On: How to Increase Sales, Productivity and Customer Experience by Turning Your Managers Into High-Performance Coaches.
The link to that offer is also in the episode description below (https://bravatrak.com/game-on-book).
Well, that's it from us today, have a productive week.