If you’re considering creating a call center to handle the calls that come into your business or the calls you need a representative to make, you should consider the many benefits of outsourcing this work to an incoming or outgoing call center. Managing and staffing a call center is a lot of work, and, more often than not, a professional call center can provide as good or better customer service than your own employees. If you manage your own call center for your small business or outsource the work to a service, understanding the struggles of call center hiring will be helpful. Let’s explore some common pitfalls by looking at common call center hiring practices to avoid (and to ask about when contracting with a call center service).
Limited Candidate Pools
The most common hiring mistake is not casting a wide enough net. If your pool of candidates is small, the likelihood that the ones you find will be ideal diminishes. You should seek candidates from various locations and backgrounds, banking on the diversity of your candidate pool to ensure that the ideal person is among them.
Insufficient Screening Practices
When a call center operation hires for positions, the process should include many avenues to advertise the openings. Without that, the risk is that the applicant pool will be too small and the candidates an ill fit. Once the applications start coming in, the misstep is inadequate screening processes. The screening processes should weed out the candidates who are not a good fit or don’t really want to be in a call center environment.
Undefined Job Requirements
Many call centers post job descriptions that are too broad or lack a clear definition of roles and responsibilities. Some do this on purpose to try to attract a larger pool of applicants, and others do it because they don’t have the time or resources to write a better job description. Either way, the lack of a clear job description often results in candidates not being a good fit for the role.
Poor Onboarding Procedures
If your processes for onboarding and training new hires is not good, you are more likely to experience hire turnover. The more you invest in training new employees, the more likely you are to establish trust and loyalty in them. If you sing them on and throw them in the deep end, they will likely experience burnout and dissatisfaction.
Employee Attrition Due To Job Dissatisfaction
When employee satisfaction is low, turnover is high. The higher your rates of attrition, the more likely you are to repeat this process of hiring over and over again. If you don’t care if your employees are happy in their roles, then you are making more work for yourself by ensuring you hire their replacement soon.
Experience the Benefits of Call Center Services from TeleRep
Whether you need help with an inbound call center or an outbound call center, TeleRep is here to help. If you still have more questions, our trained professionals are ready to answer them. We know how important customer feedback is to you and your business, so let them know that you care with an answering service. To learn how TeleRep can help you today, visit us online or give us a call at 1-800-638-2000. To keep up with our work and to see what we have been up to, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.