Are You Guilty Of Using 'Fog Up the Mirror' Tests For Contact Center Hiring?
David Filwood
CEO | TeleSoft Systems | People & Process Improvement For Contact Centers
While beginning to cool a little – it’s still a hot employment market for customer facing staff – with demand for Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) at their highest levels in more than a decade.
In every major Metro Area in North America too many Call Centers are chasing too few job candidates.
Employers are struggling to attract quality CSR applicants in enough numbers – and to retain them long enough to realize a Return on Investment.
Competition for new hires is intense – with Contact Centers poaching workers from each other’s teams – and a bidding war driving 10%+ annual CSR wage inflation.
At the same time – CSRs are disengaging from the work and voluntarily quitting in record numbers – all while it’s become much harder / more competitive / more expensive to attract candidates to fill open seats.
‘Job Hopping’ – CSRs who quit in order to go do the same work at another Contact Center – mostly for more money – has become a fast growing trend among younger employees.
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) predicts that 33% of hourly wage workers are actively considering voluntarily quitting & ‘Job Hopping’ to another employer in 2023.
Some Employers Are Choosing To Use 'Fog Up the Mirror' Tests For Their Contact Center Hiring
This should come as no surprise – and in some ways is understandable.
When the military can’t make their recruiting quotas – they lower standards – accepting people who wouldn’t have met eligibility requirements in the past – even though this leads to lower quality recruits & diminished readiness.
Many Contact Center employers have taken a similar “We Can't Afford To Be Too Picky” attitude toward their CSR hiring.
In today’s hot labor market – they’ve lowered their hiring standards – happy to just have ‘Butts In The Seats’ to fill their positions – when hiring the right job fit to begin with is critical.
Contact Center Employers with a ‘Butts in the Seats’ Mentality Are OK With Poor Hiring Habits
Contact Centers with a ‘Butts in the Seats’ mentality fill their CSR vacancies by “Throwing Spaghetti Against The Wall To See What Sticks” – regardless of whether or not the job candidate is a good fit for the job to begin with.
But where in the past a new hire had to be capable of demonstrating unscripted call handling and being able to address fairly complex issues – the hiring standard is lowered to just getting ‘Butts in the Seats’ – hiring people who can only be reliably tasked with transactional / scripted customer interactions – employees who can only take a minimal role in unscripted call handling / complex issues.
But where in the past a new hire had to be capable of demonstrating 35 to 40 Words per Minute (WPM) typing speed & accuracy – the hiring standard is lowered to accepting applicants only capable of ‘Hunt & Peck’ data entry – having to look for each key as they type – at somewhere around 20 to 25 WPM with lower accuracy.
The Internet is awash with basic ‘Call Center Interview Questions & Suggested Responses’ – and the hiring standard is lowered to having job applicants just give some memorized rote response to basic questions like:
“How do you define customer service?”
“How do you handle calls from dissatisfied customers?”
This means hiring more CRSs who aren’t all that engaged with the job – employees putting in their time in body – not in spirit.
‘Moderate’ job fits fail to deliver the emotional labor required to create Empathy / Rapport / Trust with callers.
‘Moderate’ job fits become more easily annoyed by callers – they’re poorer at avoiding or diffusing conflict – and they don’t handle complaints or retain customers well.
Lowering hiring standards in order to get ‘Butts in the Seats’ means lower training pass rates – along with more attention & extra coaching required from Supervisors on the floor just to achieve average results – higher error rates – higher absenteeism – lower Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores and/or failing to meet Revenue Targets – accelerated burnout and voluntary quits.
领英推荐
Employers Can Become So Desperate To ‘Fill Seats’ That They Convert Their CSR Hiring Process Into 'Fog Up the Mirror' Tests
That's when you hold a mirror under the applicant’s nose to see if the mirror fogs and to see if the applicant is breathing.
If the mirror fogs … “Congratulations. You're hired!”
‘Butts in the Seats’ Contact Centers giving their job applicants 'Fog Up the Mirror' tests quickly become ‘Revolving Door’ employers – with high levels of staff attrition – especially expensive Quick Quit / Fast Fire ‘Just Out of Training’ (less than 6 month's employment) turnover.
‘Butts in the Seats’: 4 Words Guaranteed To Torpedo Productivity & Customer Experience
Just hiring ‘Warm Bodies’ who pass 'Fog Up the Mirror' tests is wrong on many levels.
Every failed hire causes you to throw wasted dollars down the drain hiring & retraining recruits for the same position.
Customers are constantly exposed to ‘Moderate’ job fit CSRs who aren’t all that engaged with their work – putting in their time in body not in spirit – people who are less than proficient with the products & services they’re supposed to represent – are weak with their business language skills – fail to deliver the emotional labor required to create Empathy / Rapport / Trust – become more easily annoyed by callers – are poor at avoiding or diffusing conflict – and don’t handle complaints or retain customers well.
The answer to a shallow labor pool isn’t to lower recruiting standards – but to quickly identify / hire / retain the people with the Personality / Job Fit / Soft Skills / Work Ethic / Business English Language Competency to be above average CSRs.
Above average CSRs are stable & conscientious frontline workers – who achieve high training pass rates – ramp up to productive levels quicker – stay on the job longer – are naturally caring and compassionate – fast and efficient at delivering quality customer support – possess an affinity to display Empathy to form relationships based on Rapport / Trust with callers – receive high Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores / achieve their revenue targets – all while being highly engaged and enthusiastic ‘Team Players’ who contribute to driving coworker performance.
Agree?
Worth a [Like]?/?[Comment] / [Share]?
Click the [Like] Button to add a “Thumbs Up” (or other emoji) if you found this article to be helpful.
Join in on the Discussion by adding your own [Comment]s & perspective.
Or [Share] with your network.
Not a subscriber? Press the [Subscribe] button.
Top Performing Contact Centers Drive Their Performance & Customer Satisfaction Through Superior Hiring Tactics
Customer Service & Support or TeleSales – with a 90% Predictive Ability – you should consider using the legal / proven / cost effective Service Personnel Assessment System (SPAS) Call Center Agent Pre-Employment Screening Software Psychometric Pre Hire Personality / Job Fit / Soft Skills / Work Ethic / Business English Language Competency Assessments to quickly gain better insight & more accurate predictions as to which applicants from a pool of candidates would perform up to or beyond your established standards – for Bricks & Mortar / Work@Home / Hybrid positions.
Message me if you would like a Demo/Trial.
Copyright ? 2023 TeleSoft Systems. All Rights Reserved.
You are free to copy / distribute / transmit this work under the following conditions:
Attribution
You must give credit to David Filwood & TeleSoft Systems with a URL link back to this web page.
No Derivative Works
You may not alter / transform / build upon this work.