Top Tips for Hiring Customer Service Employees

If you want to be the best business, you need to hire the best employees. In customer service, hiring excellent employees is especially important because they are the ones dealing directly with your customers. Here are some top tips for hiring customer service employees that will help ensure you hire the right ones.

Conduct a telephone interview

If you’re hiring for a telephone customer service position, it just makes good sense to see how a potential candidate sounds on the phone. A brief telephone interview gives you a chance to see how the candidate sounds and performs under pressure on the telephone. Of course, you still want to conduct an in-person interview, but the telephone pre-interview can help you get a glimpse of their telephone manner.

Look for ‘out of the box’ problem solvers

Creative thinkers can often come up with solutions that might not seem obvious to most people. This can come in handy when dealing with customer problems, especially in a high stress atmosphere. Creative thinkers will not only look for solutions that aren’t obvious, they’ll try several ways to find the best solution for the individual problem.

Toss out a few unusual scenarios during the interview and see how the candidate answers. The creative thinkers will look for solutions that meet both your customer’s needs and your company’s needs. Flexibility, quick-thinking, and creativity are the perfect combination for a customer service employee. If you find a candidate with these traits, put them on your shortlist.

Personality matters

One hugely important characteristic of a great customer service employee is a strong ‘people’ personality. If your candidate doesn’t come across as having much of a personality, or if they seem uncomfortable talking to you and other employees, they may struggle to connect with your customers.

People with a caring personality are especially good in customer service. The ability to empathize with customers is extremely important, and empathy isn’t the sort of skill that can be taught. It can be nurtured, but if you can find a candidate who readily displays this characteristic, you’ve got a great potential customer service employee on your hands.

For more tips on creating a strong customer service department in your business, check back with, follow the Answer 365 blog or speak to one of their friendly, knowledgeable representatives.