Free Articles

Making Better Hiring Decisions

Improved employee retention leads to increased profits by substantially reducing your costs to recruit, select and train new employees. Not only that, increased retention allows you to retain knowledge, expertise and business-to-customer relationships with key customers.

How do you improve employee retention? I believe it starts with recruiting, selecting and hiring top performers. Better decision-making is the keystone to hiring top performers for consumer affairs positions. Better decision-making is easy when you know exactly what competencies your new employees must have in order to resolve complaints and regain customer goodwill after service mishaps. Here are 5 core competencies (taken from our Customer Service Manager’s Tool-Kit EBook) you should seek in consumer affairs professionals:

1. Tolerance for stress - Candidates must demonstrate a healthy response to stressful situations and an ability to maintain control in the midst of chaos.

2. Decision-making skills – Consumer affairs professionals must be able to work independently and make decisions that balance the interests of the company and the customer and make decisions that are cost effective.

3. Creative problem solving skills – Tough challenges for customers demands quick and creative solutions. Your employees need to be able to think out-of-the box and think on their feet to find creative ways to delight unhappy customers.

4. Ability to effectively deal with difficult people – Customers can be difficult and your employees need to be able to respond to difficult behavior with diplomacy and tact. Ideally, you’ll want professionals who are skilled at defusing anger, creating rapport and influencing behavior.

5. Little need for control – People who have a great need for control or rigid structure might find consumer affairs work challenging, as consumer affairs work is unpredictable, chaotic and in a constant state of flux.

Identifying core competencies positions hiring managers to accurately and quickly evaluate candidates against the requirements of the job and determine motivational fit for the position. If you’d like a sample list of interview questions designed specifically for these core competencies, pick up our Customer Service Manager's Tool-Kit EBook and share it with every manager and supervisor responsible for hiring and coaching CSRs.