Tips for BPO Customer Service Job Interviews

The industry of call center customer service is a growing business. There are many positions for those people who are gifted in these areas. However, there are also quite a few applicants pursuing those positions.

To prepare for your interview, you might want to review these call center customer service representative interview answer tips because your interaction with the interviewer will most likely be the deciding factor on whether or not you get the job.

What Makes a Successful Customer Service Representative?

The job of a call center customer service representative is mostly about how you deal with people verbally. The largest portion of the interview will most likely revolve around how you have dealt with a past experience or how you would deal with a hypothetical situation.

The interviewer will also want to know about your computer skills, experience or knowledge of call center technology, and any foreign language fluency. Multilingual and bilingual call centers offer great job opportunities if you speak more than one language. There are five major call center customer service representative interview answer tips to keep in mind when you are in the interview process.

The Top 5 Call Center Customer Service Tips for Call Center Representatives

Tip #1: If you already have experience as a call center representative, think of several recent examples of how you dealt with angry or difficult callers. Choose examples that showcase your ability to resolve the problem. Also, prepare several examples of completely positive interactions with pleasant clients. You can use this opportunity to reveal your approach to customer service that helps ensure client satisfaction.

Tip #2: Research ahead of time what type of technology the company you are interviewing for uses. Familiarize yourself with the general format so that you can show your initiative if questioned about software expertise. Be sure to mention the types of industry software that you have been trained in and where you trained, as well as basic word processing and spreadsheet proficiency.

Tip #3: Think about the qualities a good call center customer service representative needs to have, such as attention to detail, active listening skills, and problem solving skills. Be able to articulate your ideas about these qualities. Use your experiences and answers to hypothetical situations to highlight your strengths in these areas.

Tip #4: Another of the best call center customer service representative interview answer tips is to prepare answers to questions about maintaining customer satisfaction and procedure with callers. Think about the steps you take to ensure that a customer’s issues are resolved satisfactorily. Do you repeat back to them what they have said in your own words to ascertain whether you understand properly? Do you affirm their feelings of dissatisfaction? How do you go about finding a solution?

Tip #5: Keep a well-modulated, calm, and pleasant speaking voice throughout the interview. Even when questions become difficult, call center customer service interview answer tips remind you to speak slowly and clearly, with a friendly and professional demeanor. This demonstrates your ability to do the same with a client on the phone.

Following these call center customer service tips will help you walk into your interview confident. You can outshine the competition and get the job you want with the proper preparation.

8 Transition to Sales Tips

Selling services over the phone is very easy, you just need to be knowledgeable and confident to answer the customer's questions, and that's it. The hard part is "What to do to before start selling with a huge possibility of closing it?" (and I'm sure, our Sales Manager, Sheila will agree to that statement hehehe!)

In this article, I'm not going to talk about selling, this time let's talk about the things you should do to perfectly transition the call to sales and successfully close it. JUST BE NICE!

Here are some of the best practices:

1. Build Human Connection 

Most people want to talk to a live person who can quickly answer their questions. Voicemail and IVR systems are impersonal and inflexible, and leave a poor first impression. Build rapport and personalize the conversation.                                                                     

Which part of the call should you you start building rapport?? All throughout the conversation. You can do that because you're not a robot... are you? hehehe

2. Greet callers properly: 

Ensure that you include each of these three basic elements when answering the phone. First, make a brief salutation mentioning the company’s name, such as “Thank you for calling [Company Name].” Second, tell callers your own name and third, include an offer of assistance in the form of an open-ended question, such as “How may I help you today?”

3. Don’t read from a script: 

This comes across as insincere and impersonal. It’s fine to use points to guide the conversation, but not to read them verbatim. If you can make a real connection with callers, that will increase the probability of a sale.

4. Use the caller’s name, but not too often: 

Try to ascertain the caller’s name and use it periodically when addressing him or her. There is no word in existence that people like hearing more than their own name, and using it intermittently in the conversation will help to establish a connection by letting them know you think they’re important enough to remember their name. But be careful not to seem manipulative by overdoing it.

5. Avoid closed-ended responses: 

Responses limited to “Yes,” “No” or “Sure” don’t fuel further conversation. Instead, follow up with further information or questions in order to sustain the conversation and boost the odds of establishing a connection. For instance, if the caller asks, “Is my modem online already?”, don’t just say, “Yes.” Instead, say, “Yes, and if you’re seeing the Online light lit solid and the WiFi light is blinking, you can connect and should be able to surf any website…” Of course, you must also balance off your desire to forge a connection with respect for the caller’s time.

 6. Be sure you understand the caller’s issue: 

If the caller has a complex problem or hasn’t been succinct in stating his question, paraphrase or restate your understanding of the issue back to him using his own words. Then ask him to confirm that you’ve understood correctly. This will help avoid embarrassment and wasted time and energy, as well as making the caller feel that he has been heard.

7. Don’t let them rot on hold: 

Another key to showing respect is not to leave callers on hold for longer than 30 seconds. If she demands to be placed on hold, interject every 60 seconds to tell the customer that you need a little more time, thereby letting her know that you haven’t forgotten about her. I know you've been put on hold before, so when I said 30 seconds, you know that it's like being on hold for almost an hour.

8. Confirm that you’ve addressed the caller’s issue: 

Verify by asking the caller if you’ve addressed the reason for calling satisfactorily, and thank the customer for any help done on their end. This will make them feel that they have accomplished their goal in calling you, that you’ve heard what they have to say and have resolved their issue—or, at least, have committed to doing so.

After doing the last tip, you can start transitioning to sales and the good foundation you just built with the customer for just a couple of minutes will be your asset to confidently convince them and take your offer. Unconsciously, adhering to these tips will build the customers' TRUST, and that's all you need to close a sale.

Principles of good customer service

The key to good customer service is building good relationships with your customers. Thanking the customer and promoting a positive, helpful and friendly environment will ensure they leave with a great impression. A happy customer will return often and is likely to spend more.

To ensure you provide the best customer service:

• Know what your customers consider to be good customer service
• Take the time to find out customers' expectations
• Follow up on both positive and negative feedback you receive
• Ensure that you consider customer service in all aspects of your business
• Continuously look for ways to improve the level of customer service you deliver.

The following are some of the main elements of good customer service:

Customer relationships:

To build good customer relationships you need to:

• Greet customers and approach them in a way that is natural and fits the individual situation
• Show customers that you understand what their needs are
• Accept that some people won't want your products and concentrate on building relationships with those who do
• Help people - even just letting a customer know about an event that you know they're personally interested in is helpful
• Continue to keep customers aware of what's in it for them to do business with you.

Staff:

If you want to provide the best customer service, all of your staff need to have good communication and sales skills. You will also need to show leadership by personally providing excellent customer service at all times.

Complaints:

Listen to customer complaints; you may learn something about your product or service. Let customers know that you appreciate feedback. Overcome any objections. Listen to what the customer is objecting about (often price, merchandise or time). Confirm the validity of each concern and offer a solution.

Managing Complaints:

Well-managed complaints can benefit the business. Good business owners learn to see complaints as an opportunity to build strong, lasting relationships with customers and improve their customer service. Customer complaints give businesses valuable information about how they need to improve.

The impact a complaint has on your business is largely determined by you. If complaints are handled poorly, customers may withdraw their business and encourage others to do the same.

Complaints that are handled well may help you retain existing customers and could result in new customers being referred to your business.

Products:

Know your products - where everything is located, brand names, place of manufacture and price. The more you know, the more confidence you can build in the customer. Recognize product features. Turn these features into benefits for the customer. Ensure your staff can tell customers about the product features and benefits.