Ineffective recruitment strategies can become major obstacles to your call center’s growth and overall success.
If your recruitment process doesn’t attract the right talent or takes too long to bring in new team members, your current agents will face increased pressure. This, in turn, reduces the quality of the service being delivered, not to mention the fact that it can drastically limit call handling volumes at the same time.
Fortunately, the opposite is also true: a solid recruitment strategy is one of the best ways to improve the quality of the service offered by your agents while also scaling your call center in a sustainable way.
Every call center requires a customized recruitment plan, but there are many techniques that can help get the most out of your current strategy.
At Autopilot Reviews, we work closely with thousands of agents, so we experience firsthand the impact of a great recruitment strategy.
We’ve reached out to Customer Service Expert and NYT best-selling author Shep Hyken, as well as other leading customer service experts, and invited them to share their top 10 recruitment strategies that every industry leader should know.
Moreover, we’ll also highlight the importance of having a solid recruitment plan and discuss a few elements that all customer service managers have to consider during the recruiting process.
10 Recruitment Strategies Every Customer Service Leader Must Know
Call center managers are constantly searching for ways to improve the performance of their agents and the recruitment process is usually a great starting point.
Besides the fact that it’s directly in charge of evaluating prospects and vetting new team members, the recruitment team is also responsible for the first interaction that candidates have with the call center they’re applying to.
This is a crucial exchange for new prospects because it gives them a glimpse of the level of professionalism and knowledge that’s expected of them.
Recruiting for customer service call centers is a distinct process that requires a tailored approach. That said, there are many strategies that have helped call center managers and other customer service experts achieve world-class results.
Below, we’ll share some of the techniques that are used by award-winning customer service keynote speaker Shep Hyken and other leading experts to recruit the best customer service agents.
1. Recruit According to School Terms and Holidays
“We found that extending term time and holiday contracts to prospects really helped us recruit some great candidates,” said Penny Downs, Head of Customer Services at Sysco Speciality Group. “By this, I mean offering contracts to parents during school terms and to students during the holidays.”
This is a great idea, especially because the number of parents that leave during the holidays can be balanced out by an influx of new agents in the form of students.
“The key for Penny’s approach to work is to listen, innovate, and keep adapting your recruitment strategies in order to match the changing set of needs,” says Martin Hill-Wilson, Emotive Customer Experience Mentor.
“Call centers have to invest into listening to their agents and collecting feedback, first starting with face-to-face feedback sessions. These work best by far, and once managers collect enough data, they can follow up and scale using surveys to test the data across larger agent cohorts.”
2. Offer Work-from-Home Opportunities
“The option of working from home has gone from a hot commodity to an essential offering for top call center agents,” says Downs and the data backs her up.
Research suggests that 7 out of 10 call center employees want to continue working from home after the global pandemic reaches a definitive end. This is due, in large part, to the fact that call centers all over the world had to make adjustments to allow work from home during the multiple peaks of the pandemic.
For many top agents, this was a point of no return, especially if leading call centers are using this option as a recruitment tool.
3. Give Team Members a Mix of Tasks
Traditional call centers are extremely compartmentalized or segmented. In other words, there is a department assigned to one specific task and employees within that team only handle tasks pertaining to that specialty.
In this structure, agents in the operations department only handle calls and don’t take care of any supporting tasks.
“Ensuring that agents have a mix of back-office and front office work has also been another great recruitment tool for us,” says Downs. “Agents really enjoy the variety instead of just getting call after call, so it has a great impact on the bottom line even if it requires more training and a bit of restructuring.”
4. Shorten the Process as Much as Possible
According to Downs, “speeding up the process is also essential for a great recruitment plan. If the interview and proposal are too far apart or if the recruitment takes too long for another reason, you run the risk of losing great customer service prospects to other call centers.”
Trisha Bridge, Customer Service Manager at Adventure Operations, agrees with Downs.
“Call centers need to move fast with recruitment. Ideally, they should conduct a phone screening, schedule the face-to-face interview the next day, and offer a position on the spot whenever possible, pending the relevant checks of course. Basically, start as soon as you can to avoid losing great candidates to other offers,” says Bridge.
Shep Hyken even suggests that call centers go a bit further.
“Recruiters can start the onboarding process as they conduct the first interview if they find the right fit. The new agent needs to understand what the call center culture is all about. If there is a misalignment in these early stages, then the agent and recruiter already know that the relationship is not a good fit.”
“Agents typically self-select themselves out if there is a clash in philosophy, so both sides can move on from there,” says Hyken.
To learn more about Shep Hyken and how he helps companies build a better customer service culture, visit his website now.
5. Adapt to Prospects and Develop a Face-to-Face Recruitment Mechanism
There is no denying that face-to-face interactions are more powerful than other forms of communication. However, the global pandemic has normalized the use of voice conferencing platforms across many fields, including recruiting.
Markets are now starting to ramp up their activity, which is exponentially increasing the demand for call center services. To maintain the same level of service quality, call centers need to create a recruitment process that includes at least one face-to-face interview with a qualified recruiter.
This won’t be a difficult chance for call centers that only hire agents in the city or area where the facility is located, even if they offer work-from-home options.
Customer service sites that hire agents located further afield may have to incorporate video conferences in order to achieve a similar effect.
6. Dedicate a Significant Part of Training to the Company Culture
We mentioned earlier the importance of infusing candidates with the call center culture as early as the recruitment process, but this should not stop here.
After engaging prospects during the recruitment stage, trainers need to dedicate a few hours of training to helping new agents assimilate the goals, mindset, and other elements that make up the call center’s identity.
Even though this occurs after the recruiting process is completed, dedicating a part of your training to the call center culture can amplify the impact of a reliable recruitment strategy.
7. Find Team Members Who Are Motivated By the Job and Call Center
“In today’s competitive business market, especially during what is referred to as, ‘The Great Recession,’ it’s more important than ever to find employees who are interested in working for your call center and its clients, not just a paycheck,” says Hyken.
According to Hyken, “there are plenty of times during the interview that will give you an opportunity to learn what motivates the candidate. The wrong motivators are a red flag that can help you avoid hiring an agent that you’ll eventually be replacing proactively if he or she hasn’t already left before that.”
8. Leverage Digital Resources
Just like conventional consumers, professional prospects spend a huge amount of time researching new opportunities online. Even though print advertising remains a solid option for call centers, recruiters also need to leverage digital resources like social media platforms to engage top prospects at key moments.
9. Identify Each Recruit’s Biggest Weakness
Evaluating talent is a key part of the recruitment process. Many recruiters assess the ceiling, or maximum potential, of every candidate.
That said, the first three to six months are critical to the success of new agents, and during this time, the focus point is usually improving their biggest weakness.
Therefore, customer service recruiters need to observe each candidate’s biggest weakness and determine if it’s something that the training team can assess in the allotted time frame.
10. Learn from Your Recruitment History
A customer service call center’s recruitment history can tell a lot about the ideal candidates and where to find them. Make sure to analyze your historic data, compare it to the agents’ current performance, and create a recruitment plan designed to attract candidates with similar profiles.
Note that recently established call centers will have less data to work with, although these facilities can start looking at their demographic information after a few classes.
If this is the case for your call center, remember that statistical anomalies are more common in smaller samples, so you’ll have to adjust accordingly.
How Important Are Your Recruitment Strategies?
Now, let’s take a look at the importance of your recruitment strategy.
Hiring the right team members is crucial for any business and customer service call centers are no exception.
Managers need to find prospects that are comfortable adhering to the site’s schedule and have the right mentality to deliver stellar service even under tough circumstances.
The only way to do this is to create a comprehensive strategy designed to engage and attract the right type of professional.
In addition to the above, with a good recruitment program you can:
Create a Solid Pool of Applicants
Almost all recruitment programs consist of several rounds of interviews, but the quality of the final prospects will depend on how talented the pool of applicants was in the first place.
Through a solid recruitment plan, you can showcase the benefits of working for your call center and attract top talent to the preliminary round of applications.
Because call centers train large groups at a time, having a talented pool of initial applicants is even more important.
Instead of narrowing down the pool, you can simply fill every spot with a quality prospect that has a huge ceiling.
For example, your call center has a maximum training class size of 20, a detailed recruitment blueprint will help ensure that most, if not all of these new agents are a great fit for your team.
Accurately Rate Each Prospect
Call center recruits are not hard to rate or qualify if the right process is in place.
But, if your recruitment specialists and other HR team members don’t have a standardized way to qualify each prospect, then it can be difficult to consistently deduce which recruits will be a good fit.
A detailed recruitment strategy includes the different skills and professional personality traits that your recruitment specialists should use to identify ideal prospects.
Keep in mind that these skills and traits are unique for every call center, so you need to work with your customer service team leaders to develop the right profile.
Make Sure that Your HR and Operation Sides Are Aligned
Your HR team influences all other branches within your call center, but it needs to be equally connected to all other departments to help you achieve your goals.
The recruitment process is a great example of this because your HR team is directly in charge of evaluating future operations agents. However, you shouldn’t rely on communication channels that form naturally as these can take time and are not always consistent.
Instead, you should create a mechanism that ensures collaboration between the HR and operations teams.
The development of a recruiting profile is a great way to start because you can instruct customer service team leaders to meet with the HR team and collaborate on building the description of an ideal prospect.
Boost Team Morale
Incorporating new agents into their respective teams is a crucial step.
But, it’s normal for existing agents to worry about team performance because, in most cases, only a handful of new representatives deliver above-average results right away.
A great recruitment program can change the way existing agents perceive new team members. This is because recruiters that have a consistent approach do a better job at evaluating talent.
Thus, the recruits that make up each class are more talented and start performing above average in a shorter time span.
Higher Profit Margins
All call center managers understand that new agents represent a long-term investment. But, as we mentioned in our previous point, a great recruiting plan can actually reduce the amount of time it takes for agents to reach above-average metrics.
This has a huge impact on a call center’s immediate bottom line, especially if the talent pool is large and the recruitment process is scalable.
Not only this, but call centers with great recruitment programs garner a good reputation for quality. Besides significantly increasing long-term revenue, this allows customer service call centers to attract better clients, set higher rates, and request more benefits for their agents.
Attract Better Talent
The best agents have experience working in a variety of call center settings, so they know what to look for in a great employer.
What does this mean for your recruitment efforts? If you want to bring in top talent, you need to focus on the areas that are important to experienced agents.
In addition to creating an attractive benefits package for your agents, you also have to promote these advantages through the channels that your prospects use the most.
If done properly, this will ensure that you attract a higher number of experienced agents, as well as inexperienced prospects with innate skills that give them a lot of collective potential.
Reduce Employee Turnover
Employee burnout, lack of product understanding, and minimal training are some of the reasons why call center agents quit their jobs.
Managers often identify the negative elements plaguing their call centers and fix them during their recruitment strategy creation process.
This may represent significant changes depending on what issues you find in your call center. But, it will also reduce employee turnover on two fronts.
The first is the fact that you’ll be addressing these negative elements, which will increase the satisfaction levels of your current workforce.
Secondly, you’ll also create a more attractive option for top prospects and have an easier time keeping them engaged within a more positive environment.
Improve Productivity Across the Board
Good recruitment practices don’t only affect your bottom line, but also boost productivity throughout your call center.
Just like with performance, new agents often struggle to keep track of their changing schedules, break times, and QA markers. Now, this is relatively normal, but recruiting prospects that have experience and are more skilled can also reduce the prevalence of these issues.
This, in turn, reduces the amount of time that your HR, QA, and workforce teams have to invest in new agents, which usually results in a significant productivity boost across all channels.
Align Your Hiring Process with Your Call Center Goals
If you think that having a recruitment process that aligns with your call center goal is crucial, you’re absolutely right.
However, it’s important to understand that this isn’t always the case, especially in call centers that don’t have a standardized recruiting and hiring protocol.
Like all employees, the first instinct of your HR team members is to achieve their periodic goals.
Call centers that have a detailed plan can help their recruiters recognize and appreciate the value of finding the right candidates. Therefore, the recruiters within these organizations won’t only seek to meet their metrics, but also to find the best prospects through the interviewing process.
Elements that Recruiters Need to Focus On
Every customer service site is different, but there are a few elements that all recruiters should focus on. These are:
The Need for a Clear Employee Value Proposition
Call centers are usually at the forefront of innovation, so these organizations should take a modern approach and start seeing prospective employees as a new type of consumer.
Like all modern consumers, these candidates expect more from their providers than ever before and this includes employers. Rather than expecting agents to just for a salary, managers need to have a clear Employee Value Proposition that shows candidates that their prospective employers care.
The Recruitment Process, Which Works Like a Sales Funnel
If you run a survey, there’s a very strong chance that many of your top agents followed the same steps to join your customer service team.
In this sense, this is similar to the buyer’s journey that’s part of a traditional sales funnel.
Sales teams use the funnel structure to predict and eliminate the barriers that leads face before becoming paying customers.
Similarly, the HR team can develop a recruitment funnel that’s designed to reach, engage, and transform top prospects into new agents.
Recruiters Should Have Full Understanding of the Roles that Need to Be Fulfilled
It may seem obvious, but professional recruiters don’t usually have experience in any other fields. Therefore, if you outsource your recruitment process or hire recruiters externally, they may not have a full understanding of the roles that customer service agents fulfill.
There are several ways to address this issue. You can develop a program where HR team members shadow on-call agents on a regular basis in order to stay updated with the job’s latest requirements.
What’s more, you can also focus on hiring internally and making sure that all recruiters are former agents. This will ensure that all of your recruitment experts also have a background industry, which means they’ll also be easier to update later on.
Looking to Build a Better Team and Boost Its Performance? Autopilot Reviews Is Here to Help
There is no doubt that building a knowledgeable and resourceful customer service team starts with your call center’s recruitment strategies. We hope that the techniques we shared above help you build a better mechanism that attracts top talent to your call center.
Are you looking to collect more data and boost the performance of your agents? Get in touch with the Autopilot Reviews team and we’ll be glad to help.
