To provide exceptional services, it is of utmost importance for any call center to hire the right candidate for the position of sales agent. Organizations are looking to add sales executives to their team to enhance overall performance and to give a boost to their sales. The success of any Sales manager solely hangs on the selection of the right applicant for the post of call center agent.
Hiring your next call center agent, it is not always going to be an easy task. If you hire a right candidate, it will help you build a great sales team but hiring the wrong candidate would cause organization to lose a lot of money.
Applying for the post of customer sales executive in any organization, you need to be well prepared for the difficult call center interview questions. These questions will allow the hiring manager to understand your overall potential as a call center agent. However, here you can find the most frequently asked questions in call center interviews.
Tell us about yourself
In most of the interviews, the first and starting point of the interview is to ask about candidate’s introduction. Here is your chance to highlight your education, job experience, qualification, and unique selling point. Be honest with it as it will mark the first and lasting impression on the hiring team.
Why do you want to work in a call center?
Another frequently asked question in a call center interview is why you want to join a call center. This is a tricky question that needs to be answered smartly. You must state to the hiring team about your love to help people on the call as it is the basic part of customer service. Moreover, you shall address that, you want to work in target oriented and well-structured organization that helps you to develop and polish your skills.
Do you like to work in night shift?
Call center working hours are unusual and most of the operations are conducted at night hours. So based on your choice, you should answer this question whether you are comfortable working at night or not.
How long have you worked in customer service?
As an experienced call center agent, you should highlight your previous work experience, and the campaigns you work in and describe your job description in detail to the hiring team. However, in case of a fresh candidate, the candidate must illustrate the charm of working in a call center as it enables them to pursue a successful career in BPO industry.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Strengths and weaknesses is another important question that is being asked in an interview. In this case, you must reply honestly and state that you have good communication skills, critical thinker and multi-tasking skills. A call center agent must possess these skills in order to be successful. In case of weaknesses, you should be honest with it.
Where do you like to see yourself in next few years?
While answering this question, the candidate must illustrate his intent to excel and grow in the call center industry. Moreover, tell the hiring team that you want to excel and grow, and see yourself as a sales trainer or sales manager in the next couple of years. This answer shows your intent and ambitions to pursue your career in this industry.
What are the key attributes required to be a call center agent?
Call center interview questions are quite simple but are tricky ones. This is another question that needs to be given proper attention. You need to tell the hiring manager about the characteristics that need to be in a call center agent. The attributes are:
- Courteous
- Friendly
- Polite
- Professional
- Good communication
How fluent is your communication skills?
The call center agent job requires great communication skills, you are hired mostly on the basis of your English communication skills. The hiring manager will ask you to rate your communication skills. So, you have to rate it according to the skillset you have.
What are the steps you follow when a customer contacts you?
This is an important question that needs to be answered. So tell them, some of the call centers have a script that a call center agent has to follow when a customer contact to inquire about anything. However, the structure of your contact should be like:
- Greet the customer
- Introduce yourself with your company name
- Ask them how you can help them
- Listen to customers carefully
- Find the solution of your customer’s problem
- Take a feedback from your customer
- Disconnect the call in a courteous manner
Facing an angry customer and how to tackle him
In order to deal with an angry and irritate customer, the call center agent needs to be calm and polite in every sense. State that the agent must listen to customer complaints in detail, take important notes, and assure the customer to resolve the problem. The agent must start will an apology to calm down the angry customer.
Toughest decision made in the recent past
This is one of the important questions that need to address but there is no authentic answer to this question as every individual has his own story and perspective. The decision hopefully is made on merit so tell your part of story and let the interview panel decide.
Tell us about an instance dealing with a difficult customer
In customer service, you need to be very careful but professional with the customer. On different instances, agents have to deal with different customers like angry or irritating customers. Be rational in your approach and keep your composure intact. The utmost preference of a sales executive is to resolve the issue of difficult customer and provide the customer with a perfect solution.
Why do you want to leave your current job and join us?
If you are working for a call center and want to switch your job, make sure that you answer it logically. Tell the interview panel that you want to seek a new challenge to improve your overall skill set. Moreover, state that you want to work in more diverse work environment with improved remuneration.
Why do we hire you?
This question is asked by the hiring manager to judge your skills and talent. You have the chance to put an impression and by showcasing your education, previous job experience, and innovative ideas. Let the manager know that you are the one they are looking for and you are a perfect fit for their sales team.
What makes a call center a successful one?
This is another hypothetical question a hiring manager may ask from the candidate. The answer to this question will decide whether the candidate knows about the call center industry or not. Care must be taken while answering this as they take an idea about your creative side via this question.
Any questions from us
At the end of the interview, the hiring manager will ask the candidate about the question they might need to ask them. The worst scene is to directly ask about the salary/remuneration. However, you need to first ask about the company’s product/service. Then move on to the client base, working hours and company profile. Asking no questions at the end will mark a negative impact on hiring manager.
Conclusion
Customer service is one of the important factors making a company successful, some of the organizations have in-house customer services departments. The other option they have is to outsource this department to service providers. So, we can say that there is a lot of jobs available in call center industry even for the fresh candidates.
These are the common questions that may be asked in an interview for the post of call center agent. However, questions may differ from panel to panel but you need to be well prepared for these questions to mark a lasting impression on the employer. For more call center interview questions and answers visit the let’s learn section of our website.
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