Hiring and retaining talent with the ability to succeed in customer-facing roles is more important today than ever before. A Walker study, Customer’s 2020: A Progress Report, found that by the end of 2020, customer experience will rise above price and product as the key brand differentiator. To remain competitive, companies need to invest employees who can deliver a positive customer experience.
New customer service trends emerge every day. So how can you and your team keep up? Ensure employees in customer-centric roles have the necessary skills, knowledge, and aptitude with customer service assessment tests. By using customer service skills tests, you can improve your recruiting and candidate selection process, identify training needs, create targeted development opportunities, and assess the effectiveness of training and development.
Know What You Are Looking For
So, where do you begin? Start by determining the critical skills and aptitude that are required for each position. HR professionals are usually interested in education, previous job experience, and technical skills. However, a key indicator of success in customer service is emotional intelligence. In fact, research suggests that emotional intelligence is a better predictor of job performance and employee engagement than technical skills and industry experience alone.
Soft skills are critical for customer service positions, while technical skills, like the ability to navigate call center software, can be taught during the onboarding process and through on the job experience and training. It is a long process for an individual to develop emotional intelligence through observation and training. As Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, “You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.”
Leverage an Assessment That Reflects the Reality of the Job
eSkill’s customer service ability tests provide insight into how candidates react in a challenging work situation that mirrors the reality of the job. The tests consist of chat and call center simulations, typing exercises that measure speed and accuracy, and questions that evaluate critical thinking skills and how candidates respond to various customer service scenarios. Tests also assess candidates’ ability to work well in teams, communicate, operate computer programs, and resolve customer complaints.
If businesses aim to improve customer satisfaction levels, they need to make hiring decisions based on data obtained from unbiased, well-constructed customer service assessment tests so they can evaluate the behavioral characteristics, cognitive ability, and skill level of potential employees. eSkill’s customer service assessment tests offer a proven way to help companies identify and hire candidates with the strongest aptitude for resolving customer problems in a personable, patient, and professional manner.
eSkill’s customer service tests measure behavioral traits and technical skills and statistically compare them with others who have taken the test. Once candidates take the assessment, their results are immediately available to hiring teams on the eSkill dashboard. The overall score makes it clear if a person is a high, medium, or low fit for the job, and results can be broken down by subject, topic, or individual question. Results of customer service skills tests can easily be viewed, shared, and analyzed on eSkill’s user-friendly platform.
Select a Job-Specific Assessment
eSkill’s dedicated Client Success Managers help employers build relevant assessments that are job-specific. Since every job is unique, eSkill’s user-friendly interface makes it easy to combine assessments, edit questions, add questions from the eSkill Test Library or create questions using your company’s proprietary information. These assessments are editable as a template so you can modify and save your own versions.
Begin with any of eSkill’s customer service job-specific assessments, such as the Call Center Operator Skills Test, Customer Service Representative Skills Test, Desktop Support Specialist Skills Test, or Live Chat Operator Skills Test, remove questions or blocks of questions, and add questions or simulations to match any position’s requirements. With eSkill, employers can also quickly build custom tests from over 600+ modular subjects, 5,000+ subtopics, or a large library of individual questions. On eSkill’s user-friendly platform selecting or building a customer service ability test is simple, and eSkill’s expert staff is available to assist employers and test-takers 24/7.
Optimize Training Practices
Customer service skills tests can also be used to develop targeted, personalized training programs. Once hiring decisions have been made, use the results of the test to determine skills the new employee needs to learn. Creating customized training experiences during onboarding brings newly-hired employees up to speed faster and improves engagement and productivity during the initial post-hire period, which results in lower turnover.
Customer service skills tests can also be used to identify training and development needs for existing employees. Investing in your current employees’ professional development will increase your retention rate and improve employee morale and productivity. Test your workforce to identify skill and knowledge gaps and provide needed training. After training is complete, evaluate its effectiveness with eSkill’s tests.
Abandon the one-size-fits-all candidate selection and training process and focus on implementing a talent management solution that is effective, efficient, and compliant with eSkill’s customizable customer service assessments.
Learn more about the benefits of using eSkill’s customer service assessment tests to find qualified candidates quickly.
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