In today’s competitive business environment, excellent customer service can mean the difference between achieving or missing your business goals and objectives.
When you provide clients with an excellent service experience, they are likely to become loyal to your brand. Research shows that customers are 81% more likely to make subsequent purchases from your company if they have a good experience during their first transaction. It also shows that 71% will take their business elsewhere if they have a bad experience.
Having good active listening skills is important for customer service representatives because it is impossible to help someone if you don’t have a complete understanding of a situation. Using customer service online assessment tests to evaluate applicants is the best way to identify candidates who are good active listeners.
What is Active Listening?
People who are good active listeners not only hear what someone is saying but also make an effort to understand what the person is thinking and feeling. They are masters at turning a conversation into a constructive, non-confrontational interaction.
According to the Harvard Business Review, there are three aspects to active listening: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral.
Active listening is important because when customers contact your company, they are looking for guidance or a solution to a problem and want to be heard, understood, and served. The more empathy your customer service team has with customers, the more customers will value their relationship with you and the products and services you offer.
How to Use Customer Service Job Assessment Tests to Assess Active Listening Skills
HR teams use customer service job assessment tests to screen candidates and ensure they have the necessary skills to do a job.
Every customer service online assessment test includes questions in multiple formats, such as multiple-choice, true/false, simple select, and select all that apply. The topics covered vary depending on your job requirements. Questions from the eSkill Listening Skills, Business Communication, and English Language Comprehension assessments are the best options to evaluate active listening skills.
You can use the pre-prepared versions of these assessments or build a customized skills test that perfectly matches your job requirements, using questions from these and other assessments.
If you opt to build your own assessments, you might find questions from the eSkill Customer Service and Call Center skills tests useful, as well as the eSkill Inbound and Outbound Call Center Simulations. Simulations allow you to present applicants with realistic scenarios they will encounter during a typical workday and observe how they handle them.
When candidates submit completed assessments, you and your team can review the results and rate their responses. Candidates who score high enough—according to the standards you set—move to the next step of your hiring process.
Other Questions to Include on Customer Service Online Assessment Tests
Top assessment solutions provide clients with access to an assessment library with hundreds of validated skills tests. The ones you need depend on the job you are trying to fill.
The questions to include on your customer service online assessment test depend on your job requirements. Suppose the employee will enter and process orders. In that case, you need applicants who can correctly enter model numbers, product names, and shipping information to avoid shipping and delivery delays. This means you should include questions from the eSkill Typing, Form-Fill Data Entry, and Attention to Detail skills tests.
If the employee will respond to customer inquiries and solve order and delivery problems, applicants should have good problem-solving skills and be adept at working with difficult customers. So, in this case, you should include questions from the eSkill Problem-Solving and Emotional Intelligence skills tests.
Most, if not all, customer service representatives use computers to complete job-related tasks. So, skills tests that measure computer proficiency are popular with hiring teams. Examples of customer service job assessment tests in this category include eSkill’s MS Word®, MS Excel®, and Data Entry Operator tests.
Get Started with Customer Service Job Assessment Tests
Customers notice and appreciate it when you take the time to understand what they need. According to Hubspot, 93% of customers consciously choose companies that provide superior customer service, and 58% are willing to pay more for excellent service.
An assessment solution like the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM can help you identify candidates with excellent active listening skills. When hired, they will help you deliver outstanding customer service, ultimately leading to improved customer satisfaction and lower churn rates.
Do you want to learn how customer service online assessment tests can help you recruit candidates with excellent active listening skills? Contact eSkill to request a demo.