Hiring for customer service roles requires double consideration. The candidates you choose have to be a good match for not only your organization but also the customers they will deal with on a daily basis.
I’ll never forget one client I met with who had an unfortunate perception of customer service roles. This manager viewed them as merely a stepping stone to other areas and didn’t want to give them the same level of attention they devoted to other departments like marketing.
While it’s true that customer service jobs are often entry-level and the hourly pay typically can’t compete with the higher salaries other roles can offer, this client was making a huge misstep. We pointed out that he seemed to be glossing over the fact that when you hire customer service representatives, you’re hiring the face and voice of your company. It’s no small task.
The importance of customer service is only growing in the eyes of consumers, with 95% of people saying the service they receive (or, in many cases, do not receive) impacts their brand loyalty.
A strong customer service recruiter is the link between your company and that perfect new client-facing hire. With the right recruiter, hiring for jobs like call center representatives and help desk specialists gets a whole lot easier. So, what’s the secret to hiring a recruiter who will help you build a problem-solving, customer-pleasing service team? I’ll share eight things to look for.
Why Hiring the Right Customer Service Matters
It defines the customer experience
This may seem basic to most, but a customer’s experience with a single service agent defines their perception of the entire brand. When the experience is positive, it establishes trust and builds loyalty. When it’s negative, it gives that customer every reason not to stick around.
Great customer service reps are skilled at identifying tailored solutions and turning negative interactions into positive ones, which contributes to stronger customer retention. It’s more cost-effective to hold onto an existing customer than to attract a new one.
It reduces unnecessary costs
Hiring the wrong customer service agents can eat into your bottom line in more ways than one.
First off, there’s the cost associated with making a poor hire, which can be around 30% of a position’s salary. Considering the average customer service rep earns around $40,000 a year, we’re talking about a $12,000 mistake for every bad agent you add to the team. Ouch.
Then there’s the cost of the business you might lose through the negative experience we touched on a moment ago. Those costs are much harder to quantify but could easily range into tens of thousands. Looking at it this way, can you afford not to invest in hiring the right customer service staff?
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It impacts your reputation
Customer service directly impacts word-of-mouth recommendations and online reviews, which are two of the main channels of information customers use when making purchasing decisions. Unfortunately, negative interactions have an outsized impact since consumers are significantly more likely to share a bad experience than a good one. How often are 1-star reviews accompanied by a paragraph of text, while 5-star reviews may only have a few words? Excellent service prevents damage to the positive reputation you’ve worked hard to build.
It enhances business outcomes
Bad customer service is bad for business. For most consumers, it only takes two negative interactions with a brand for them to switch to a competitor. Great customer service, on the other hand, helps grow your customer base and increase customer lifetime value.
It allows you to weather challenging times
COVID is the perfect example of this. As brands made major changes to their business models, call centers were inundated with confused and unhappy customers. Companies with exceptional customer support teams fared better and could adapt more easily than those who had to scramble to respond to the massive upheaval.
What to Look for When Choosing a Customer Service Recruiter
1. A genuine curiosity to learn about your company
No matter the industry, the first step when working with a recruiter or staffing agency is the discovery phase. During this time, a good staffing professional will work diligently to learn what makes your company tick and what’s required for success in your role so they can match you with the right set of candidates.
In customer service, however, this phase takes on a new level of importance. Culture fit is important when sourcing talent that speaks and acts on your company’s behalf. You need candidates who embody your values and genuinely believe in the service they provide your customers. Our team at 4 Corner Resources makes it a habit to always ask about company culture and what appeals to them as opposed to a competitor. It’s just as important of a topic to know what technical skills are involved in the role.
Look for a recruiter with this same level of inquisitiveness since their knowledge of your organization will be directly tied to their success in sourcing talent. They shouldn’t just be checking boxes or scanning your answers to a questionnaire but asking thoughtful questions to gain a nuanced understanding of who you are as a company. After all, they will likely be a candidate’s first impression for your organization.
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2. High emotional intelligence
Simply put, is the recruiter likable? While it’d be nice to live in a world where candidates weigh all available information equally when deciding where to work, that’s not the case. Scholars have been working for years to understand the factors that influence our decision-making the most, and not surprisingly, up top is likability.
It’s known as the ‘principle of liking’, which dictates that we’re likelier to say yes to people we like than people we don’t. What makes someone likable? Science has defined three core factors:
- We like people who are similar to us,
- We like people who compliment us, and
- We like people who cooperate with us toward mutual goals.
A strong customer service recruiter will deploy emotional intelligence to establish these likability factors with their candidates on your company’s behalf.
That doesn’t mean you’re looking for someone who’s phony—far from it. You want someone with the emotional intelligence to find common ground and establish rapport with a diverse range of candidates. A good customer service recruiter should be able to highlight your company’s strengths and convey to candidates how they fit in with their criteria for an employer. Candidates should be able to feel like they’re working with your customer service recruiter on the shared goal of finding an ideal job match.
When all these things combine, you have likability, and it’s more likely to yield a positive outcome for you and the candidate.
3. Industry expertise
When you have a toothache, you go to the dentist. When you throw your back out, you might see a chiropractor (or a good massage therapist!). When something important like your health is on the line, you turn to an expert in that field. The same should hold true for something as important as your customer service hiring.
When choosing a customer service recruiter or staffing agency, look for a recruiting firm with an established track record of success hiring for the job titles you need, like inside sales representative or call center manager. Their past experience will be instrumental in identifying ideal skill sets, overcoming obstacles, and assessing the fit between your company and a candidate.
Recruiters and staffing agencies with specialized experience in the customer service industry also bring another major advantage: long-standing relationships. As you know, relationships are the foundation for a successful recruiting program. You don’t want a staffing firm that relies on cold calling or LinkedIn requests to make connections; look for someone with an established reputation in the field.
Related: Top Recruitment Trends When Hiring a Customer Service Professional
4. Experience with high-volume hiring
A large hospitality client came to us ahead of the busy holiday season. To accommodate the upcoming surge in demand, they needed to hire at least 200 customer service agents within a six-week time frame. Without the additional staff, they’d look at soaring wait times, negative customer satisfaction ratings, and many lost sales.
This would be an exceedingly tough assignment for an agency without this type of hiring experience. Since we are well-versed in high-volume hiring, though, we were able to build out a project plan and deliver on their request with little difficulty. The customer service recruiter you choose should be comfortable handling large volumes of applications, managing bulk recruitment drives, and dealing with high-pressure seasonal hiring cycles.
Related: High-Volume Recruiting Strategies
5. Knowledge of key metrics
Metrics are important no matter what type of job you’re filling, but some specific numbers are of particular relevance in the customer service field. Select a recruiter who is familiar with customer service KPIs like first response time (FRT) and customer satisfaction (CSAT) so these numbers can be incorporated into your screening.
6. Resilience
Good customer service candidates are snapped up quickly. Deals fall through, and candidates who seemed like a sure thing change their minds. It happens. Even the best recruiters and staffing agencies deal with setbacks like these. The key is finding a customer service recruiter who can bounce back from challenges without a loss of enthusiasm.
You want a resilient recruiter in the face of adversity who keeps their eyes on the prize with an assurance that they’ll ultimately be able to land the best candidate for the job.
All of that sounds great, but how do you identify it? When hiring a recruiter, ask potential candidates to describe a time when things didn’t go their way. How did they respond? Ask specifically about how they handle it when candidates fall through or when an impasse is reached in negotiations. You’ll be able to learn a lot from their responses.
Of course, being able to talk openly about these setbacks rather than glossing over them is another good sign of resilience to look out for. You want a customer service recruiter or staffing agency that can face the challenges that come up during staffing and confidently lead you through them, not act like they don’t exist.
7. Someone who is socially savvy
We’ve discussed the shift toward social media as a broad customer service trend, but the movement isn’t limited to customers seeking support on social media. Customer service candidates themselves are also using tools like Instagram, LinkedIn, and even TikTok to learn about potential job opportunities and connect with brands, so you need a staffing professional who’s well-versed in social recruiting.
Ahead of tax season, one financial client came to us frustrated that their approach to posting on traditional job boards wasn’t getting much traction. We knew that for their specific needs, they weren’t looking in the right places. We turned to college Facebook groups to source local talent that was available for an immediate start. As a result, we were able to fill 30 call center openings within a few weeks.
An estimated 79% of applicants use social media in their job search, be it to learn about open positions, research prospective employers, or apply directly through an in-app form. Social media is also a critical channel for reaching passive candidates, with a whopping 82% of organizations citing that as the top reason they use social media in their hiring process.
Look for a customer service recruiter who understands social media and has a demonstrated history of using it to source candidates. When talking with prospective staffing firms, ask to see examples of successful social hiring campaigns and discuss what that might look like for your organization.
Don’t neglect the most obvious way to gauge a recruiter’s social savvy—their own social media channels. A current and cohesive presence on channels like LinkedIn and Facebook is necessary for contemporary customer service recruiters.
8. An emphasis on innovation
As the old saying goes, the early bird gets the worm, and nowhere is this truer than in technology adoption. Remember when recruiting on LinkedIn was the big new thing? It was like a gold mine for sourcing talent… until every last recruiter in the world was using it, and the space became saturated.
Technology moves fast, and many of the staffing trends of just a year or two ago are already outdated. Work with a customer service recruiter or staffing agency that heavily emphasizes innovation, actively seeking out the latest technologies like AI and predictive analytics that can supplement their personal relationships and traditional recruiting channels.
To identify forward-thinking recruiting firms, ask about the publications they read and the industry events they attend. It’s important to consider their knowledge of trends not only in recruiting but also in customer service.
Source the Best Customer Service Talent with 4 Corner Resources
If you’ve read all of this and you’re still wondering how to find a recruiter for your customer service staffing needs, let us be the end of your search. Our professional recruiters have deep customer service and call center staffing expertise built upon our founder’s background in enterprise telephony. We pride ourselves on staying on the cutting edge of technology in the recruiting and customer service fields.
When you work with 4 Corner Resources, our call center staffing experts will source and screen applicants on your behalf with the help of our proprietary recruiting methodology, then deliver only the top talent directly to you. We understand that customer service goes beyond national borders, so we also specialize in staffing reps in Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Hindu, Arabic, and Russian to meet your needs, independent of geographic location.
See why we’ve been recognized among Forbes Magazine’s Most Respected Recruiting Firms in America. Contact us today to get started filling your customer service positions.
