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How To Hire Customer Services Staff

How To Hire Customer Services Staff
Post Series: How to Hire

Your brand reputation is everything, and your customer support team is on the front line, playing a crucial role. Tasked with ensuring customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, selling products and services, and resolving complaints, your business needs to hire the best talent, which means leveraging the proper recruitment solutions, which are also cost and time effective. With an excellent hire, great customer service is achieved, and your business goes from strength to strength. Hire poorly, and you will have frustrated callers, poor sales, and fail to meet, let alone exceed industry standards.

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So, how do your hire excellent customer service representatives?

This is the focus of our step by step guide to recruiting customer services staff, where we discuss:

  • Preparing To Recruit Customer Services Staff: Your Employer Brand & Company Careers Page
  • Writing A Customer Support Team Job Description & Job Advert
  • How To Hire All Customer Services Staff
  • Advertising Your Customer Service Roles: Referral Schemes, Social Media, & Job Boards
  • Reducing Customer Services Staff Hiring Costs And Time: Recruitment Companies & ATS
  • Screening Job Seekers & Conducting Interviews
  • Presenting A Job Offer & Onboarding Customer Service Representatives

Preparing To Recruit Customer Services Staff: Your Employer Brand & Company Careers Page

How To Recruit Customer Services Staff

Before you begin active recruitment for customer support reps, you should review all your existing candidate touchpoints to ensure you are promoting a positive employer brand and a working environment where a customer service team member can flourish. You will ultimately only secure the best customer service specialists if you show that you are a highly desirable employer where people want to work.

The initial step is to consider how you portray your company culture, values, and success, along with other elements such as supporting further training and career development. In our Guide On How To Hire, we explore deeper the topics of Why Should SMEs Build An Employer Brand and What Should Be On A Company Careers Page.

Writing A Customer Support Team Job Description & Job Advert

How To Write A Customer Service Position Job Description

You can only write an accurate customer service role job description and job advert once you have examined your broader company needs. It will make a big difference in the long run if you speak to key decision makers in the hiring process, including the position’s line manager:

Customer Services Job Descriptions

Writing a good customer service job description for your business or call centre will help your recruiter save time and speed up the recruitment process. The best practice is to have one on file for all company positions, which can be quickly updated and used to create job postings whenever recruitment needs arise.

For SEO, it is a good practice to integrate keywords and key phrases that the potential employees might search for in a search engine. The job specification and customer support agent profile should have a clear message to attract the most suitable candidates. It also helps to refrain from using excessive punctuation and too much industry jargon.

When writing a job description for customer service reps, consider:

  1. Identifying and outlining typical company-wide requirements
  2. Collating today’s minimum customer service agent skills, qualifications, and experience
  3. Reviewing what other employers in similar and other sectors are saying when they publish a job posting
  4. What your new customer service professionals should look like
  5. How you want your brand to be perceived

Our Job Description Templates can help you get started; we appreciate writing this content in manner that will attract the best customer service hire can be a challenge. You can discover the most popular Customer Services Job Descriptions here.

Further useful resources include How To Define What People Do In Their Jobs, our step by step guide on Preparing Job Descriptions, and Key Roles And Responsibilities In Customer Services.

Customer Service Team Job Adverts

Your customer support agent job descriptions should form the basis of your new job ad. There are other things to add to attract the perfect candidate with appropriate skills, so ensure your job ad includes:

  1. Accurate job titles – customer support manager, customer support rep, call centre reps, customer support team leader, customer success officer, etc
  2. An opening statement – saying why professionals will want to work for your customer service team
  3. The job’s description
  4. A list of responsibilities – solve problems and resolve issues with angry customers, recording notes of calls, delivering great customer service, answering customer inquiries, taking incoming customer calls, updating information in the customer database, following the company’s approach to upselling with existing customers, selling services to potential customers, etc
  5. Qualifications, personality traits, experience, and technical skills – strong communication skills, positive attitude, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, empathy towards how a customer feels, Level 1 Certificate in Customer Service, Level 2 Certificate in Contact Centre Operations, etc
  6. Job location – Call centre, retail unit, city, or support for remote workers
  7. Salary range and employee benefits – check the average salary for all customer service team roles
  8. Next steps – customer services candidates interested in our job opportunities should email xxx or apply via your careers page

We recommend that small and medium sized businesses use a job advert template to get down the basics of customer service positions, and then fill in more detail on the unique aspects of your company, team, jobs, and ideal candidate.

Download Job Advert Template

How To Hire All Customer Services Staff

HOW TO HIRE A CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER

To hire a Customer Service Manager, your job advert should include a summary of your company, its activities, and the size of the team to be managed. Your person profile might be for someone with leadership or supervisory experience, and sometimes product knowledge is a prerequisite.

Responsibilities that encourage candidates to apply include mentoring junior staff, hiring and appraising, setting sales and customer satisfaction targets, resolving escalated complaints, and authorising expenditures.

Customer Service Manager Job Description Example

Post A Customer Service Manager Job

HOW TO HIRE A CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE

To hire a Customer Service Representative, your job ad should state if the position is a call centre role or within a business. A good candidate match is attained when you define required skills, such as a willingness to cross-sell products, engage in active listening, and work as part of a diverse team.

Everyday duties include handling complaints, processing orders, cancelling subscriptions, resolving customer problems, and following data protection laws.

Customer Service Representative Job Description Example

Post A Customer Service Representative Job

HOW TO HIRE A CUSTOMER SERVICE PROFESSIONAL

To hire a Customer Service Professional, your job advertisement can state the level of seniority and critical responsibilities. Job tasks include engaging with customers to receive feedback, generating product or service sales, answering caller’s questions, and updating records.

Communication is a top skill, and phone screening presents an opportunity to assess how the individual performs across this medium. Including a salary range generates appropriate candidates.

Customer Service Job Description Example

Post A Customer Service Job

HOW TO HIRE A CUSTOMER SERVICE ADVISOR

To hire a Customer Service Advisor, your company should create a job description that includes goals and objectives. Clarify if the role is full or part-time and if shifts will cover unsociable hours and national holidays.

Job duties that attract candidates include nurturing customer satisfaction, answering telephone calls, responding to online chats and emails, securing sales, handling customer complaints, and resolving customer problems.

Customer Service Advisor Job Description Example

Post A Customer Service Advisor Job

HOW TO HIRE A TEAM LEADER

To hire a Team Leader, your job ad should relay the company’s vision and values and describe the career development opportunities, as candidates will be looking to further their careers. You might ask for supervisory experience but sometimes contact centre or customer service representative experience is sufficient when coupled with team manager support.

Team leader duties include decision-making, mentoring junior staff, creating work schedules, authorising leave, running meetings, monitoring standards, and acting as a go-between for staff and managers.

Team Leader Job Description Example

Post A Team Leader Job

HOW TO HIRE A CUSTOMER SERVICE ASSISTANT

To hire a Customer Service Assistant, your advertisement should describe the typical shift pattern and the type of services, products, or subscriptions the company provides. Duties that may attract candidates include solving customer issues, providing support, selling products, updating contact details, and fielding incoming telephone calls and chat sessions.

Candidate skills will include an excellent standard of English, interpersonal skills, and a genuine interest in sales and customer satisfaction.

Customer Service Assistant Job Description Example

Post A Customer Service Assistant Job

HOW TO HIRE A CALL CENTRE PROFESSIONAL

To hire a Call Centre Professional that will deliver excellent customer service, describe how your call centre is unique, the company culture, support, and training. Enticing job duties include talking with customers by phone, email, and chat, building client relationships, cross-selling, up-selling, and updating customer records.

Qualified candidates may have experience using a CRM system or have completed a customer services diploma.

Call Centre Job Description Example

Post A Call Centre Job

Advertising Your Customer Service Roles: Referral Schemes, Social Media, & Job Boards

Advertising And Building An Applicant Pool

With your job ad in hand, you are ready to begin customer service team recruitment. To recruit excellent customer service agents, your hiring strategy might include posting your jobs:

Internally (Employee Referral Schemes)

A non-incentivised or incentivised employee referral scheme is extremely valuable and cost effective when you want to hire for permanent and temporary roles . You will turn your current employees into motivated recruiters, sharing that you are recruiting new hires across their social and professional networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook).

Employee referral schemes often bring in promising candidates, with your team having connections with like-minded professionals and industry contacts. To engage this recruiting strategy, share your job descriptions with your customer support team and reward referrals from staff whenever a new hire is secured.

You can discover a few valuable tips on employee referral schemes by reading Introducing An Employee Referral Scheme.

On Social Media

Hiring customer service agents through social networking sites is effective, with free and paid advertising options. Our top tip for success includes ensuring your social network messaging is consistent with your employer brand and conveys a positive image. An active social media channel is helpful if you want to build a talent pool waiting for an opportunity to join your organisation. A few examples of recommended activity includes posting news, expert opinions and your own research, updates, and industry insights.

Download Job Advert Template

Our tips and advice for implementing a successful social media recruitment strategy include:

  • Marketing yourself first
  • Joining industry networks and groups
  • Engaging with respondents and nurturing discussions
  • Using advanced search tools and Recruiter Lite on LinkedIn
  • Using Twitter’s advanced search tool and direct messaging
  • Building activity on your company’s Facebook page and encouraging engagement your customer service agents, turning them into business advocates

We explore finding qualified customer experience professionals through social media further in our articles Social Media Hiring Strategies For SMEs and Job Advertising On Social Media.

On Job Boards

Whether your new hire is your first or your hundredth, advertising your job posting on the top job boards is essential if you want to be hiring the right candidates in an acceptable timeframe. You can post about your recruitment needs on one job board, or many using an Applicant Tracking System. Job board resellers help you advertise your customer services job across multiple general, geographical, and niche job sites using their integrated ATS software, minimising the hassle and time of developing leads and hiring a successful candidate.

Top Job Boards:

Niche Job Sites:

Aggregator Job Sites:

Geographical Job Sites:

You can advertise your job on these job boards today.

Reducing Customer Services Staff Hiring Costs And Time: Recruitment Companies & ATS

Recruitment Service And Reducing Hiring Costs

Budgets, deadlines, and administration require careful consideration whenever you instigate the recruitment process. To get the best results, you may decide to work with a recruitment agency with a UK wide focus, a global recruitment partner, or niche recruitment agencies.

We discuss agency fees and recruiters in these two articles; How To Avoid High Recruitment Agency Fees and The Pros And Cons Of Having A Recruiter On Retainer.

Fixed Cost Recruitment Process

Fixed-cost recruitment allows you to hire at a flat fee governed by the level of service and functionality you desire.

The success of fixed-cost recruitment depends on the company offering the service, the methodologies they deploy, and their expertise and knowledge of your industry and sector. You will need to determine which actions you need assistance with to use flat-fee recruitment successfully.

Four steps to leveraging fixed cost recruitment to recruit customer services staff:

  1. Place ads across leading job boards
  2. Search CV databases and social media channels
  3. Headhunt and shortlist new candidates
  4. Receive interviewed and qualified candidates

Useful resources:

Applicant Tracking Systems

Automatic Tracking Systems can significantly reduce the costs of hiring for temporary or permanent roles by creating efficiency. Candidate, vacancy, and advert management fall within the software’s parameters.

Team access creates a unified place to work, helping you build a seamless hiring process and candidate experience.

Five steps to centralising recruitment with ATS:

  1. Find customer services staff to fill roles online
  2. Review candidate scores
  3. Distribute personalised messages to a large pool of candidates
  4. Automate responses
  5. Direct candidates to application forms

To explore all the features and benefits of Automatic Tracking Systems, read Centralising Recruitment With ATS.

Screening Job Seekers & Conducting Interviews

Screening And Interviewing Customer Services Candidates

Before your interview process commences, you need to shortlist applicants by reviewing their CVs or resumes. Indications that you have a customer service reps worth interviewing include:

  • Quantifiable evidence of past achievements and good communication skills
  • The individual has steady career progression
  • The candidate is not job-hopping
  • The cover letter and CV is free from spelling and grammatical errors
  • The candidate has the relevant experience, communication abilities, and specific skills to meet the job requirements

Decision-makers and hiring managers need to be prepared to deliver a consistent interview experience. It helps to ask the same interview questions to each customer services candidate, to aid scoring. Ensure anyone who has candidate contact is on the same page and understands the business’s vision, values and opportunities. Interviews should be challenging, supportive, positive, and engaging.

Video interviews are an increasingly popular recruitment solution, saving on resources and speeding up the recruitment process. Video sharing, shortlisting, and feedback from hiring and line managers ultimately generate more successful outcomes. If your company has not conducted a video interview before, read How To Conduct A Remote Interview.

Our article Defining Your Interview Process, discusses interview questions, avoiding unconscious bias & other issues, and interviewing tips.

Download Job Advert Template

Presenting A Job Offer & Onboarding Customer Service Representatives

Presenting A Job Offer Customer Service Reps

When you have finished interviewing candidates and believe you have the right person for your customer services role, you will need to present an offer and onboard the temporary the employee:

Making An Employment Offer

The process of presenting the offer to customer services staff varies depending on what has occurred before. If you don’t already understand the individual’s current earnings, expectations are better managed over the phone. Phone offers should be confident but be prepared to make changes if the candidate’s circumstances have changed. Reaffirm that the candidate is happy with the offer, clarify their acceptance, and proceed to a formal written offer, in the same way you would for any business employees.

A formal offer letter from your company can be conditional (dependent on background checks, etc) or unconditional and should include:

  • Job title
  • Candidate name
  • Your conditions – i.e., this offer is made subject to…
  • Official start date, time, and location
  • Probationary period
  • Offer terms
  • Candidate actions and acceptance instructions – i.e., signed copy of job offer
  • Terms and conditions of employment (issued within two months of the start date)

You can read further on Presenting A Job Offer here.

Onboarding Customer Services Staff

The onboarding process should support new employees as they become part of your customer support team.

Actions for onboarding customer support reps might include:

  • Creating an employer identification number
  • Presenting an employee handbook
  • A business or call centre tour, introducing the person to their manager and team
  • Informing the new hire of communication methods and the software they will use in the new role
  • Presenting clear responsibilities and duties
  • Defining expectations, standards, and performance indicators
  • Gathering feedback from new recruits

Customer Services Recruitment FAQs

Hiring Staff To Provide Support To Customers

Here we answer your hiring recruitment questions.

Where can I advertise to find great customer service staff?

You can post jobs on/in:

1. General job boards
2. Niche job boards
3. Geographical job boards
4. Local newspapers
5. Social networking sites

What are the steps in the hiring excellent customer service reps?

Hiring process steps include:

1. Assessing business needs and customer problems, before writing a job description and advert
2. Leverage social networks and employee referrals
3. Post jobs on general and niche job sites
4. Use a fixed cost recruitment strategy
5. Present an employment offer

How To Hire Staff In Different Sectors

Find our recruitment guides for different sectors below:

All Customer Services Job Descriptions

Post All Customer Services Jobs

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