Nowadays, businesses can’t underestimate how important it is to have the right team ready to satisfy their customers, but finding people who are great in communicating with customers is hard. What’s even worse is that people assume anyone can do it.

Sure, picking up phones or writing emails may not seem like a big deal but customer service position includes more than that. It requires empathy, patience and having a thick skin towards negative reviews. Remember, don’t overlook the importance of soft skills.

Behind the hiring process is a lot of work. Managers need to sort through piles of resumes, conduct interviews and in the end choose the best candidate. To make the whole process easier for you, we prepared a couple of answers from experts in customer service.

Spot top customer service agents while hiring and get the best customer service talent in the door with these 7 tips.

“How to choose the right people for your support team?”

Culture Addition. (I wrote a blog on this FYI). Most people want to learn, expand their skills and take on more challenges. In order to build engaged teams, you need to foster that as much as you can. To do this, I focus on finding areas within the team where we are missing a particular skill. By hiring a mix of skills, for example someone who is better at soft skills versus technical skills, or someone who has a different educational background than the rest of the team etc., the entire team can all learn from each other. In addition, this helps you to do less formal training, and as a leader you can start specializing each individual as a SME in their respective areas, which furthers individual engagement.

“What three qualities should a good team member have?”

Reliability. Trust is the keystone to all other qualities, and the leader and the team must be able to able to trust that others will reliably do what they say
Dealing with change/ambiguity – Especially in startup tech, or in fast-paced industries. Not having all the details, or having those details change frequently is common and having a team that can weather that storm will make your company more productive
Collaborative mindset – Support is not an island. Each team member must have a mentality that they will work with whichever team of whomever is responsible to make the best outcome for a customer.

“How to choose the right people for your support team?”

Take the time to write solid interview questions that tie directly to the traits you are hiring for, and make sure every interviewer is aligned with what makes a good answer to those questions. For a support role specifically, having a written component to the process is key!

“What three qualities should a good team member have?”

Accountability, ability to problem solve and adapt, customer advocacy

“How to choose the right people for your support team?”

It’s difficult to evaluate the potential during a first stage of the job interview. Experience and knowledge matter, but hobbies and interests are more important. Also stories like “I always try to help my mum get to know her smartphone better, and I like that greatly “are a big” plus”.

“What three qualities should a good team member have?”

Ability to find the right information in a variety of sources; – ability to interpret the information when passing that to other people – and take into account their competence and task; – joy when helping other people.

“How to choose the right people for your support team?”

Support is a team job and from the customer point of view your support team can be only as good as the worst member of your support team. Because of that it’s really important to choose a new candidate that will fit into your existing team perfectly. His personal traits and ability to fit in is what really matters. Technical skills required for the job can be taught, communication skills can be improved but you can’t change someone’s personality. If the person does not really fit into your support team, it’s simply not the right guy for the job.

“What three qualities should a good team member have?”

Outgoing, Reliable, Helpful.

“How to choose the right people for your support team?”

For me, I’m always thinking about building out a well-rounded team with a diverse skill-set. You’ll need a product expert, a problem solver, a work-around guru, a cheerleader, a customer-whisperer, etc. While it’s important to have a foundation of all these skills in a support professional, it’s equally important to have folks who can provide expertise and leadership when needed.

“What three qualities should a good team member have?”

Critical Thinking – seeking total resolution for a customer typically extends past their initial ask.
Discipline – there are highs and lows in customer-facing positions. Discipline kicks in when motivation doesn’t.
Coachability – The best people I’ve worked with know themselves and actively seek to improve.

“How to choose the right people for your support team?”

For us, a big part of choosing the right person is finding someone that fits into our team dynamic. Most people can be taught how to provide excellent support for your product, so finding people that will add value to your team and teaching them what you want them to do has been very successful for us. In general we do favor candidates that have some previous experience, but overall the key is finding a excited and motivated person that matches our culture.

“What three qualities should a good team member have?”

Reliability – being able to deliver is critical to long-term success, and contributes to building trust on a team
Consistency – Similar to reliability, creating a quality of work that is consistent helps us to set expectations and measure against them
Trust – All of the above falls away if you can’t trust your team. Hiring colleagues that have your back lets you do your job better

“How to choose the right people for your support team?”

I look for people who, above all, value the insights you gain from being on the front lines with customers. Specifically, I like to see people who recognize that Support is best positioned to serve as customer champions inside of the organization, and they push for changes that will improve the customer experience. If someone can demonstrate success in taking a specific customer inquiry and using that to solve a platform issue more broadly, that is a person I’d want on my Support team.

“What three qualities should a good team member have?”

Curiosity, Problem solving, Empathy

Conclusion

Building a successful customer service team takes time and effort (and bad hires will cost you both). Next time you’re hiring someone be patient, carefully go through resumes and try to remember these tips.

Good luck!

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