Insights from Shep Hyken and other leading customer service experts on attracting top talent and building successful teams.
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 reduces service quality and drastically limits call handling volumes. Fortunately, the opposite is also true: a solid recruitment strategy is one of the best ways to improve agent quality while scaling sustainably.
At Autopilot Reviews, we work closely with thousands of agents and experience firsthand the impact of great recruitment. We've reached out to Customer Service Expert and NYT best-selling author Shep Hyken, as well as other leading experts, to share their top strategies.
Customer Service Expert & NYT Best-Selling Author
Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times best-selling author. He works with companies who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees.
Call center managers constantly search for ways to improve agent performance—and recruitment is usually the best starting point.
"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."
Balance staffing by offering flexible contracts. The number of parents leaving during holidays can be offset by an influx of students. Success requires listening, innovating, and adapting recruitment strategies to match changing needs.
"The option of working from home has gone from a hot commodity to an essential offering for top call center agents," says Downs. Research suggests that 7 out of 10 call center employees want to continue working from home after the pandemic.
Remote work is no longer optional—it's essential for attracting top talent. For many agents, this shift represents a point of no return, especially when leading call centers use it as a recruitment differentiator.
"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."
Break away from traditional compartmentalized structures. Providing variety between customer-facing and supporting tasks reduces burnout and makes positions more attractive to prospects.
"Speeding up the process is essential," says Downs. "If the interview and proposal are too far apart, you run the risk of losing great prospects to other call centers." Trisha Bridge adds: "Call centers need to move fast—conduct phone screening, schedule face-to-face interview the next day, and offer positions on the spot whenever possible."
Speed wins talent wars. Conduct rapid phone screenings, next-day interviews, and immediate offers (pending checks). Shep Hyken suggests starting onboarding during the first interview if you find the right fit.
Face-to-face interactions remain more powerful than other communication forms. Markets are ramping up activity, exponentially increasing demand for call center services. To maintain service quality, include at least one face-to-face interview with a qualified recruiter.
Prioritize in-person interactions when possible. For remote hires, use video conferences to achieve similar results. The pandemic normalized virtual recruiting, but face-to-face moments still create stronger connections.
After engaging prospects during recruitment, trainers need to dedicate hours of training to helping new agents assimilate the goals, mindset, and elements that make up the call center's identity.
Culture training amplifies recruitment impact. Don't stop at introducing culture during interviews—dedicate formal training time to immersing new agents in your organization's values and expectations.
"In today's competitive market, especially during 'The Great Resignation,' it's more important than ever to find employees interested in working for your call center and its clients, not just a paycheck," says Shep Hyken.
Look beyond surface motivations. Interview questions should reveal what truly drives candidates. Wrong motivators are red flags that help you avoid hiring agents you'll eventually need to replace.
Professional prospects spend huge amounts of time researching opportunities online. While print advertising remains solid, recruiters must leverage digital resources like social media platforms to engage top prospects at key moments.
Meet candidates where they are. Digital channels are essential for reaching modern prospects. Use social media strategically to showcase your culture and benefits.
The first three to six months are critical to new agent success. During this time, focus is usually on improving their biggest weakness. Recruiters need to observe each candidate's biggest weakness and determine if training can address it in the allotted timeframe.
Assess trainability, not just potential. Every candidate has weaknesses—the question is whether your training program can address them within the critical first 3-6 months.
A call center's recruitment history reveals a lot about ideal candidates and where to find them. Analyze historic data, compare it to agents' current performance, and create a recruitment plan designed to attract candidates with similar profiles.
Data drives better hiring. Review which recruitment sources, candidate profiles, and characteristics correlate with long-term success. Note: smaller samples have more statistical anomalies, so adjust accordingly.
A comprehensive recruitment program delivers benefits across your entire organization
Showcase benefits to attract top talent from the start. Instead of narrowing down mediocre pools, fill every training spot with quality prospects who have high potential.
Standardized qualification processes help recruiters consistently identify ideal candidates. Work with team leaders to develop the right profile for your unique call center.
Create mechanisms ensuring collaboration between HR and operations. Develop recruiting profiles together—don't rely on naturally forming communication channels.
Consistent recruitment practices help existing agents trust that new team members will be capable. Better talent evaluation means recruits perform above average faster.
Great recruiting reduces time-to-productivity for new agents. Quality reputation attracts better clients, enables higher rates, and justifies more benefits for agents.
Experienced agents know what to look for. Focus on areas important to top talent, create attractive benefits packages, and promote through channels prospects use most.
Identify and fix negative elements during strategy creation. Address issues to increase current workforce satisfaction while attracting prospects to a more positive environment.
Skilled recruits require less HR, QA, and workforce support. This reduces time investment in new agents and creates productivity boosts across all channels.
Detailed plans help recruiters appreciate finding the right candidates. They'll seek to meet metrics while finding the best prospects through interviews.
Every customer service site is different, but these elements are universal
See prospective employees as a new type of consumer. Modern candidates expect more than a salary—show them their employer cares with a compelling EVP.
Top agents often follow similar paths to join your team. Develop a recruitment funnel designed to reach, engage, and transform prospects into agents—just like sales funnels convert leads.
External recruiters may lack customer service experience. Have HR shadow agents regularly, or hire internally to ensure recruiters understand the roles they're filling.
Building a knowledgeable and resourceful customer service team starts with your recruitment strategies. Autopilot Reviews helps you collect data and boost agent performance.