Your customer service staff members are on the front lines of your business day after day. They are often the first point of contact a customer has with your brand, and they can very well be the deciding factor on whether a customer sticks around for the long haul. 90% of Americans factor in the quality of customer service when deciding whether to do business with an organization.
Despite the importance of a strong service department, employment numbers in the customer service industry are expected to decline by 5% through 2033. This is largely thanks to automation taking over many service-related tasks. Even in the face of declining job numbers, though, customer service hiring is expected to remain consistent. This is because of the industry’s not-so-dirty little secret: persistent turnover.
Attrition in customer service is higher than in almost any other industry, with turnover rates in U.S.-based call centers ranging from 30 to 45%. That is more than twice the average for all occupations.
With so many customer service professionals vacating positions yearly, the need to establish a strong talent pool and a continuous recruitment pipeline is greater than ever.
7 Customer Service Recruiting Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Culture fit is often a secondary priority
Culture fit, the term used to describe how a person’s attitudes and beliefs align with those of the organization, is often viewed as a secondary rather than a primary qualifier when narrowing down your pool of customer service candidates. When it’s already difficult to hire, you may be hesitant to filter out candidates merely because of their work style or communication habits.
However, failing to hire for culture fit leads to multiple problems—dissatisfaction, unmotivated employees, and high turnover. High turnover leaves staffers who remain employed feeling wary and disillusioned. It is a vicious cycle.
How to overcome it: To break the cycle and avoid rapid turnover, consider culture fit as a top component in your screening and hiring process. Use tools like personality assessments to identify candidates who are a strong match for your company’s values, work style, and environment.
Involve current employees who would be the candidate’s peers in the hiring process to chat with them and provide feedback. Ask questions that will help you assess how the candidate’s values align with your own, like ‘What’s your ideal work environment?’ or ‘What characteristics do you value most in a manager?’
Related: Strategies to Build a Stronger Call Center Culture
It takes a long time to fill vacancies
Agencies needing customer service reps cannot hire as quickly or as easily as they did in the past. Candidates have more openings to choose from and are more picky when making decisions about where to work. In addition, hiring costs are increasing. Still, this competitive market is not an excuse to rush the process when you have a vacancy.
How to overcome it: Instead, overcome this customer service hiring challenge by recruiting continuously, not just when you are facing a staffing shortage. Work to build relationships with prospective candidates over the long term, leading with a strong employer brand. This is known as a talent pipeline approach.
Maintain relationships with past employees who may ‘boomerang’ back to work for you again after picking up new skills elsewhere. Do not pause your screening efforts just because a position is unavailable today; keeping a strong talent pool at the ready ensures you can fill vacancies promptly when they arise.
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Organizations fail to leverage recruiting data to its full potential
We are big advocates for the power of data in recruiting, but other industries may come to mind when you think about using hard numbers to aid in hiring. Unlike fields that depend on hard skills you can test for, like accounting or IT, customer service relies more heavily on soft skills like interpersonal communication and the ability to multitask. Still, you can use data to your advantage.
How to overcome it: Analyze the common traits of your high performers to identify what they have in common. Are they all meticulously organized? Do they have a creative side? Are they great at collaborating?
Zero in on what sets your top in-house talent apart so you can work to uncover more of those qualities in future hires. Using personality questionnaires and tracking the results of performance reviews over time can help build the body of data you have to work with. Leveraging AI tools can help you quickly mine through large volumes of data and uncover further insights.
Modern candidates have lofty expectations
Candidates today have different expectations than they did ten or even just five years ago. An expanding conversation about a living wage has prompted a growing number of cities and states to raise their minimum wages. More companies are extending benefits like employer-sponsored healthcare and retirement packages to part-time employees (customer service industry jobs like retail and hospitality account for the greatest proportion of minimum wage workers).
As a result, candidates are more discerning. If they can’t obtain a competitive wage and attractive benefits with one employer, several alternatives are typically willing to offer them.
How to overcome it: If you want to attract and retain top customer service talent, you must step up your benefits to meet these evolving expectations. If offering retirement benefits or expanded perks to all employees is not financially feasible, consider other in-demand offerings like more flexibility, which ranks directly behind healthcare and retirement in popularity among candidates.
Flexibility is at odds with operational needs
As we touched on above, a flexible work schedule is one of the perks employees value most. The nature of customer service work, though, makes flexibility tricky to implement from a practical standpoint. Sometimes, you need to have a specific amount of coverage and, thus, cannot offer complete flexibility.
How to overcome it: You can give your staffers more control over their schedules without leaving you shorthanded. Use the services of a contract staffing agency to ease the workload during your busiest periods. Allow full-timers to flex their 40 hours outside the typical Monday to Friday schedule, like four ten-hour days or split shifts. Use contract workers to fill gaps when there is a high demand for time off, like around the holidays. Consider investing in infrastructure like cloud-based service platforms that enable employees to work remotely.
The most innovative companies are increasingly realizing that the strict 40-hour, five-day workweek is becoming a thing of the past. The best companies will accept the shift and find new ways to embrace it that are both good for business and attractive to candidates.
Related: The Importance of Flexibility in the Workplace
Top talent craves continuous development opportunities
Employees value training, but many organizations balk at the prospect of offering ongoing development opportunities because of the cost and resources they require. This is a mistake since 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning and development. According to Forbes, companies earn double the amount of income per employee when they offer comprehensive training, which means that allocating resources for continuous learning is a win-win. The employee benefits from resources that expand their skills and increase their ability to do their job, while the employer benefits from the fruits of those skills in the form of a more engaged workforce.
How to overcome it: Training does not always have to occur in a formal classroom setting or via an expensive off-site event. Make ongoing learning part of your service team’s regular workflows. For example, offer bite-sized training on new features as part of your regular staff meetings or incorporate more one-on-one coaching to fill downtime during low-volume periods.
You can also fold information about your robust training opportunities into your employer branding materials, increasing your ability to recruit top talent.
Related: How to Improve Your Employer Brand
Limitations make it difficult to keep top performers motivated
In customer service, it can be tricky to use title bumps as a means of motivation because of the limited paths for advancement. There is often only one way to climb the ranks and a fixed number of individuals who can hold any one title. Pay increases can also be a struggle due to rigid wage brackets.
How to overcome it: The easiest customer service hiring challenges to overcome are the ones you do not allow to become a problem in the first place. Focus on lowering vacancies by motivating more of your top performers to stick around longer. Money is always a strong motivator, but if a raise is out of the question, consider alternate forms of compensation like performance-based bonuses; when a customer service rep helps you make more money, they reap the financial rewards, as well.
Also, use means beyond pay and promotions to motivate your best team members. Seek their input on organizational issues, such as improving your efficiency, and then implement their advice. Give them opportunities to get face time with upper management, which can be valuable for networking and mentoring. Avoid micromanaging and trust top performers to make their own judgment calls without always getting a manager’s approval. When there are opportunities for advancement, actively seek out candidates to promote from within.
Strengthen Your Customer Service Hiring with 4 Corner Resources
Build a consistent pipeline of qualified candidates with the help of the customer service headhunters at 4 Corner Resources. We will help you identify key skills, screen for culture fit, and make sure you are hiring talent with the right personality traits to communicate with customers on behalf of your brand.
Your reputation depends on the quality of your customer service and call center reps; we do not take that fact lightly. We have spent 15 years refining our recruiting methodologies to deliver industry-leading placement rates at a cost that respects your budget. We use relationships, resources, and the highest response rates in the business to deliver the results you need.
4 Corner Resources is your staffing partner for hiring the best call center agents, data entry specialists, inside sales reps, customer service managers, and more. Start your customer service candidate search today by getting in touch now.
