Beyond the processes you put in place and the helpdesk software that your company uses, the customer service experience is ultimately influenced by the people you hire. People in customer-facing roles form the face of your company in the market. When they fit their roles, all’s well. Otherwise, well, not so well.
The question we’re asking this week is about customer support hiring. What’s your approach to customer support hiring?
Hire experienced people and empower them.
Experienced customer support professionals bring a certain competitive edge to your company. They already know how to handle varying ticket loads. They know what to do when a ticket gets escalated. They know what not to say to that short-tempered customer. They’ve been there and done that.
Experienced professionals are suitable for small companies that don’t have much process intelligence yet. They’re also suitable for companies that prefer to put hires in their roles almost instantly.
Having said that, professionals who meet your specific requirements are not very easy to find.
Hire fresh candidates and train internally.
Fresh hires come with an open mind. They haven’t been conditioned to think in any particular pattern. They can be trained to fit your company’s exact culture and philosophies.
Hiring fresh is suitable for companies that have process intelligence. Also, if you’re hiring at scale, its easier to hire fresh when compared to hiring experienced professionals.
Having said that, the cost of training a fresh hire is far higher and even more substantial at scale. So, it’s a trade-off between deployment flexibility and training cost.
What do you do at your business? Tell us in the comments section below.
We’re looking forward to listen to your opinions on this topic.
I couldn't answer the survey because it was really just a yes/no question on whether you want to hire experienced people or not. And I always choose hires on the basis of their attitude first, before I look at any other criteria. If they've got the right attitude, they will be able to adapt their past experience, etc. But also if they've got the right attitude, they will come up to speed in my system quickly, even without experience.