subject: Guide To Finding The Right Customer Service Staff [print this page] If you are hiring customer service staff, its crucial that you hire the best that your budget can afford. Think about it. The help desk or the customer service team deals with your companys customers on a regular basis. So if you have an excellent help desk team, your company will be able to keep your regular customers happy, encourage repeat business, and generate positive word of mouth that could lead to new customers.
A good rule of thumb when looking for people to man your help desk: using the guidelines for delivering topnotch customer service. Hire only the team, whether outsourced on in house, that is committed to delivering the best customer service possible. After all, your company wants to deliver the best products or services in order to stay ahead of the competition; so you should only work with a customer service team that is as committed to quality.
One of the things that should clue you in that you are dealing with a topnotch customer service staff is if that staff values the customers time. If you are hiring a service provider, find out if they have guidelines for putting customers on hold or how they deal with clients that would need to be transferred to more than one department to resolve a particular issue. Look for indications that the customer service team informs the customer of what exactly is being done to help them or resolve their issue.
There should also be indications that the help desk team values preparedness. The staff should always be prepared as soon as they come on board so that they dont waste time looking for their reference materials and other tools and are always ready to assist the customers. This is the kind of team that does not waste the customers time and can offer prompt assistance.
Hire only the help desk team that has an effective quality assurance method. Let the potential service providers discuss the quality assurance methods with you. Find out if they use customer satisfaction surveys and how they use these surveys. How are the level expectations set? How is the promptness of response to emails and calls from customers measured? Your potential service providers should be able to walk you through the processes. As always, it is better to be well informed, particularly about the objectives of service levels and the other methods used in the industry to measure customer service.
First rate outsourced customer service staff companies usually have a quality assurance (QA) team that monitors calls and review the tickets or the notes taken during each call. The QA team usually rates several aspects of the way the call was handled. This would include the documentation of the call, also called the call ticket, the follow ups done, and if the call was escalated to a different team or department. The QA team would usually provide feedback on the ratings, do side by side coaching, and recommend additional training if needed.
