Have you ever been served by someone either over the phone or face-to-face and thought to yourself “how an earth did you get through an interview for this job?” and “why did you apply for this job in the first place when you are clearly not suited to it?”

You know the type of person – rude and unhelpful and almost bordering on being obstructive.  When you come across this type of customer service advisor it always leaves you wondering if anyone has ever actually listened to them interacting with their customers.

Interviewing for customer service staff can be a very tricky process and far too complex a subject for a simple blog post however at GA Training we have come up with the following three key questions that you may wish to ask to avoid getting in people who quite frankly do you organisation more harm than good.

  1. Do you like people?
  2. Do you enjoy helping people?
  3. Do you get a buzz out of helping people to meet their needs?

If you asked nothing other than these three questions at an interview then this would possibly be better than a rigorous assessment centre if the outcome is that you get the right people in through the door.

You may also be surprised at some of the answers you receive and they may be very enlightening.  We encouraged one of our clients to ask these questions at interview and she chose to open each interview with them.  One candidate actually said that as a rule they preferred animals to people!!  Suffice to say that person did not end up with a job.

Once you have employed the right people with the right attitude then putting together a robust customer service training programme for them becomes that bit easier because everyone is committed to the same goals and outcomes.

If you are interviewing some new customer service staff in the coming weeks and months, surprise them and ask them these three simple, yet incredibly powerful questions.  You could end up saving yourself a lot of time and heartache and you should cut down on instances of the wrong person representing your organisation.

Those questions once again:

  1. Do you like people?
  2. Do you enjoy helping people?
  3. Do you get a buzz out of helping people to meet their needs?