Contact center managers know that excellent customer service is the key to keeping customers happy and building brand loyalty. They also know hiring qualified representatives is challenging because they need such diverse skills.
Almost 80% of customers say speed and product/service knowledge are priorities. So, contact centers must hire employees with excellent verbal and written skills and good multitasking and time management abilities. Contact center representatives must be friendly and empathetic and able to manage difficult callers without getting frustrated or flustered. Finally, they need to learn and understand their company’s products and services.
Although 36% of US customers prefer to contact customer service by phone, 32% of organizations ran contact center technologies in the cloud at the end of 2020, and 75% said they expected to move to the cloud within the next two years. This means contact center representatives must also know how to use phone, email, and chat effectively.
Since it is challenging to recruit candidates with all these attributes, contact centers implement an industry-leading assessment solution like the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM and use skills tests and contact center simulation assessments to screen applicants.
Which Contact Center Simulation Assessments Do You Need?
As many HR leaders will attest, the best way to ensure applicants can do a job is to present them with typical job scenarios and evaluate their performance. So, many contact centers use contact center virtual scenario assessments.
Which contact center virtual scenario assessments you need depends on the job requirements and the type of work your contact center team will be doing. If contact center representatives will have extensive contact with customers and answer questions or resolve issues, use the Inbound Call Center Simulation and include questions from other skills tests such as Call Center Operator, Emotional Intelligence, and Problem-Solving.
Suppose your team’s primary function is market research or fundraising. In that case, the Outbound Call Center Simulation is perfect for your needs, especially if you include questions from the Call Center Operator, Negotiation, and Sales Representative Skills Tests.
Other simulations contact centers use include MS Office®, Multitasking, Chat, and Digital Literacy. All can be used alone, combined with other simulations, or combined with skills test questions.
For instance, if your contact center team members routinely manage multiple customer inquiries simultaneously, use the Chat and Multitasking simulations to confirm they are organized enough to respond to multiple customers promptly and accurately.
If the primary focus of their job is to input and process orders, use questions from the Call Center Operator and Attention to Detail Skills Tests and include questions from the Form-Fill Data Entry Typing Skills Test. You can also add questions from the MS Office Simulation to ensure candidates can complete job-related tasks using Word®, Excel®, Outlook®, and PowerPoint®.
Contact Center Simulation Assessments Eliminate Unconscious Bias
HR leaders agree that recruiting efforts must result in hiring the best-qualified candidate for every job opening. Unfortunately, this does not always happen because bias can influence hiring decisions. Eliminating subjective bias is important because companies that promote diversity are more productive than their competition. It also helps organizations avoid costly and time-consuming legal challenges.
Call center skills tests and contact center simulation assessments help ensure all applicants are evaluated fairly and objectively because hiring teams’ decisions are based on hard data instead of gut feel.
How Contact Center Simulation Assessments Reduce Turnover
As every business leader can attest,employee turnover is disruptive and counterproductive. The cost of a bad hire can be as high as $240,000 when you factor in recruiting expenses, team disruption, loss of customer goodwill, and potential litigation. And this does not include incurring additional hiring costs to replace the employee.
HR teams can no longer rely on the information candidates provide on their resumes because over half of all applicants misrepresent their experience and qualifications. Contact center virtual scenario assessments help eliminate hiring mistakes by taking the guesswork out of hiring. When you see that candidates can complete tasks they will perform on the job, you can make hiring decisions with confidence.
Get Started with Skills Tests and Contact Center Simulation Assessments
Call center skills tests and contact center virtual scenario assessments help you hire candidates who have the right skills and experience to provide excellent customer service and are a good fit for your corporate culture. This enables you to improve quality of service, increase customer retention, and reduce turnover.
Call center skills tests and contact center virtual scenario assessments also save you time and money. Your team can screen large volumes of applicants in minutes instead of wasting hours reviewing resumes from unqualified applicants. Many eSkill clients have reduced hiring costs by up to 70% and decreased time-to-hire by almost 60%.
Do you want to learn how contact center simulation assessments help you hire candidates who will deliver top-flight service? Contact us to request a demo.