5 Types of Customer Service Interview Questions You Need to Ask
Are you struggling to get your customer service interview questions right? Here’s how to find the best reps for your agency!
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March 3, 2023
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11
min read
Image Source: Yanalya on Freepik
If you’re thinking that coming up with the right customer service interview questions is the first step towards excellent client relations, you’re most certainly right. Keep reading to learn how refining your question list will help you upgrade your customer service team!
What Makes a Customer Service Interview Question Good?
As customer service is becoming increasingly important in today's ever-evolving business world, it is crucial that employers are able to accurately assess the abilities of potential customer service hires.
This is why you need well-crafted interview questions. By asking the right questions, you can easily identify the best candidates for the customer service job, while ensuring that the interview process is a positive experience for both the interviewer and the interviewee.
A good question will let you know whether a candidate shares your company's values and possesses drive, adaptability, positivism, and empathy. While you can educate customer service agents on best practices and teach them valuable skills, it’s highly improbable that you’ll be able to instill in them certain character traits.
Customer Service Skills to Look For
When conducting customer service interviews, there are several skills and traits you should never lose sight of. After all, your customer success representatives are your business card when it comes to the relationship with the company’s clients.
Most customer service roles imply dealing with all sorts of situations and clients. Here are a few abilities you should never compromise on:
- Communication skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Willingness to learn
- Passion
Here is how identifying each of these sets of skills will help your customer service team thrive!
1. Communication Skills
Strong communication skills are vital for good customer service. Pay attention not only to what your candidate is saying but also to how they’re saying it.
Here are a few questions you’ll need answers to before the end of the interview:
- How prepared are they?
- Are they able to convey their message effectively?
- How do they handle unpleasant situations?
- Do they manage to keep their cool when faced with an angry customer?
Remember that if you’re going to put a customer service rep on the phone with a client, you must ensure that they will be able to understand the customer's perspective to proceed accordingly.
2. Problem-Solving Skills
Rarely — if ever — will a customer get in touch with your team because everything is going perfectly fine. Any customer service agent should be able to untangle unpleasant situations, find practical solutions to issues, and address any challenges your clients may face head-on.
This means that your customer service agents need to think outside the box and be able to find creative solutions to any problem. This is essential because, on the one hand, it serves the purpose of increasing customer loyalty and, on the other hand, it helps your team develop better customer strategies and processes.
3. Willingness to Learn
A good customer service manager should be eager to constantly improve how they do their job. Your ideal candidate should be willing to stay up-to-date with the latest products, services, and trends in order to provide an outstanding customer service experience.
They must also be able to quickly learn new procedures and protocols while on the job, and be able to adapt to any changes in the industry. To make their service bulletproof, they should constantly aim to improve both their soft and hard skills.
4. Passion
Passionate customer service professionals are more positive, enthusiastic, and motivated to go above and beyond to ensure customer satisfaction and an overall positive customer experience. They know that their individual performance impacts the entire team’s success, so they are going to walk the extra mile to achieve their goals.
Passionate customer service professionals also tend to be more creative and think outside the box to solve client problems, which is essential for most customer service jobs.
Types of Customer Service Interview Questions
When hiring for any customer service job, it’s important to know not only what questions to ask, but also why you’re asking them and what type of answers to expect.
The most important customer service questions you need to ask as an interviewer include:
- General customer service interview questions
- Behavioral-based interview questions
- Customer service management interview questions
- Customer service technology interview questions
- Call center interview questions.
Let’s break down each of these categories for you to learn how to upgrade your hiring process!
1. General Customer Service Interview Questions
General questions will help you evaluate your candidates’ mindset and overall fit within your team. Identifying individuals who share your values regarding the importance of customer service in a business should be among your top priorities.
A. Why You Need to Ask These Questions
You are well aware of how important excellent service is; does your candidate share these standards? The best applicants will be able to articulate the importance of customer service to a company and provide specific instances of both good and poor service.
They should be prepared to discuss details about your business and how exceptional customer service will help it flourish.
Beware of candidates who are trying to get a different job, but consider customer service positions the quickest route to employment.
B. What Answers to Expect
You should expect to get answers that demonstrate the candidate's ability to provide excellent customer service. Ideally, your interviewee should be able to showcase their experience in dealing with customer complaints, resolving customer issues, and providing exceptional customer service.
You should also expect to get answers that show the candidate understands the importance of good communication, efficient problem-solving, and being a team player.
C. General Customer Service Questions Examples
- What is your definition of good customer service?
- Which abilities do you think are most crucial for providing customer service?
- How do you make sure you maintain good communication with the company’s customers?
- Which company provided you with the best customer service ever?
- Describe a moment when you encountered poor customer service. What did this teach you? How would you handle a similar situation?
- What about our business or product determined you to want to join our team?
- Why are you interested in this position if you have never worked as a customer service representative?
- Do you think that the client is always right? If not, why?
2. Behavioral-Based Interview Questions
Behavioral-based interview questions are an important part of the customer service job interview. Asking these types of questions helps you to better understand the behavioral traits of potential candidates and how they may respond to various customer service scenarios.
A. Why You Need to Ask These Questions
Behavioral-based interview questions allow you to dive deeper into a candidate’s experience and skill set in order to identify how they may perform in a customer service role. These questions will help you evaluate a candidate’s ability to think on their feet, remain calm under pressure, and empathize with customers who may be having a difficult time.
As a result, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions when hiring for customer service roles.
B. What Answers to Expect
When answering behavioral-based interview questions, applicants should focus on providing specific examples that demonstrate their ability to handle customer service situations. It is important that their responses show that the applicant has put thought into their answer and is prepared.
For instance, when asked how you would handle an angry customer, an applicant should explain how they can remain calm and professional in the face of a difficult customer. They should also explain how they would use active listening and empathy to defuse the situation and resolve the customer’s issue.
When asked how to handle a customer who was not satisfied with their service, an applicant should explain how they would take ownership of the situation and find a resolution. This could include offering a refund or providing a discount on a future purchase.
C. Behavioral-Based Questions Examples
- Can you share an occasion when you were happy with the level of service you offered to a client?
- Describe a situation in which you had to break unpleasant news to a client.
- Tell me about a situation where you managed to fix a customer's problem.
- Describe a situation when you had to deal with a challenging client who needed to be sent to your customer service manager. When did you realize they needed to be redirected, exactly?
- Describe a moment when you had to deal with an angry customer. How did you respond to the situation? What happened as a result?
- Describe a moment when you upsold a customer on a product or service and were successful.
- Tell me about a time when you were dealing with a client who had already spoken to several staff members but was still unable to get the assistance they required. How did you handle this situation?
- Can you give an example of a moment when you had to manage more calls than usual? How did you handle each client request?
When looking back at an interview recording, it can be hard to identify which questions and answers fall into which category, especially when the time is short. That’s why we came up with Meeting Templates, a feature that uses AI to identify and categorize every part of your customer service interviews, based on the keywords you provide MeetGeek with.
3. Customer Service Management Interview Questions
Asking customer service management questions during a customer service interview helps you get a sense of how well the candidate understands the expectations and requirements of the job posting.
A. Why You Need to Ask These Questions
Queries about customer service management are crucial when trying to determine the applicant's knowledge of customer service processes and the importance of customer satisfaction. You will also gain insight into the applicant's leadership skills, problem-solving abilities, and communication style.
Moreover, the right questions will provide you with information about the applicant's ability to motivate, mentor, and develop customer service teams. The answers to these questions can help employers assess whether the applicant is capable of developing and leading a team to success.
B. What Answers to Expect
Candidates should demonstrate a clear understanding of customer service management principles and demonstrate an ability to effectively handle various customer service situations.
Specifically, they should be able to describe their approach to customer service management and how they would handle customer service issues. They should also be able to explain their ability to identify and resolve customer service issues in a timely and effective manner.
Your applicants showing an understanding of customer service trends and how to use them to better serve customers is always an advantage.
C. Customer Service Management Questions Examples
- What traits do you believe are most crucial for a customer service rep?
- Tell me about a customer care strategy you created and put into place.
- How do you stay up to date with client expectations and industry trends?
- What do you believe to be the most crucial factor in creating and leading a customer service department?
- How can you make sure every customer service rep is motivated and doing their job well?
- How do you keep tabs on each rep's and your department's performance?
- Describe a situation in which you had to supervise a team member who was performing poorly.
- What remedies have you developed in response to recurrent issues with customers?
4. Customer Service Technology Interview Questions
These types of questions can provide additional insight into the candidate’s problem-solving skills and help to determine their ability to troubleshoot common customer service technology issues.
A. Why You Need to Ask These Questions
Technology is constantly changing and evolving, which is why it is important to ask customer service software interview questions. This helps to ensure that the candidate has the most up-to-date understanding of the tools used by your company and can quickly adapt to changing technologies.
If the role involves developing and implementing customer service technology, you may have to ask questions related to software development and database management.
You can also use customer service technology interview questions to determine a candidate’s ability to communicate effectively. Technology is becoming increasingly important for customer service, and any great customer service representative needs to be able to explain technical concepts in a way that is easy to understand for customers.
B. What Answers to Expect
The ideal response will depend on the specifics of the question and the exact job description. Generally, a good interviewee should be able to provide responses that show their knowledge of customer service technology and demonstrate their capability to use it to achieve success.
Your candidate should be able to describe in detail their experience using tools such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or help desk systems. They should also feel comfortable discussing any strategies or techniques they have used to successfully implement customer service technology.
Last, but not least, they must be able to explain how they have used customer service technology to improve customer service operations and detail how they have successfully used them to resolve customer issues.
C. Customer Service Technology Questions Examples
- What experience do you have using customer service technology?
- How do you stay up to date with the latest customer service technology?
- How do you ensure that customer data is secure when using customer service technology?
- What strategies do you use to ensure customer service technology is used effectively?
- Describe a situation in which you successfully used customer service technology to resolve a customer issue.
- How do you ensure customer service technology is user-friendly?
- What processes do you use to ensure customer service technology is properly maintained?
- How do you use customer service technology to provide a positive customer experience?
5. Call Center Interview Questions
The interview questions about call center experience help you assess the candidate's level of customer service expertise and knowledge.
A. Why You Need to Ask These Questions
Asking questions about a candidate's past call center experience gives you a better understanding of how the candidate has handled customer service situations in the past and how they may handle them in the future.
Additionally, doing so can help you understand the candidate's strengths and weaknesses related to customer service, as well as their ability to handle a high volume of calls and customer inquiries.
B. What Answers to Expect
You should expect to receive answers about the candidate's experience working in a call center environment, such as how long they have worked in the role, what their primary duties and responsibilities were, how they handled difficult customer interactions, and how they handled customer complaints or escalated calls.
You should also expect to hear about their ability to build relationships with customers, their multitasking skills, and any customer service-related certifications or training they may have completed.
C. Call Center Questions Examples
- What do you think a call center agent's main duties should be?
- What do you consider to be the most important abilities for a call center job?
- Why do you believe you'll succeed in a call center customer service position?
- How was your previous performance in a call center evaluated?
- How many call center software platforms have you used? What are your thoughts about them?
- When a consumer is aggressive on the phone, how do you handle it?
How do you respond to negative feedback?
4 Tips for Hosting Great Customer Service Interviews
Carrying out good customer service interviews comes with its own set of challenges. This is because there’s a lot of pressure to find the right customer service agent, who is properly equipped to handle all sorts of situations and customers.
Here are our tips for hosting great customer service interviews:
- Record your interviews
- Encourage candidates to use a unique approach
- Pay attention to how they listen
- Be creative with your questions.
Let’s take a look at each of these tips to see how you can make the most of them!
1. Record Your Interviews
More and more customer service hiring managers are choosing video interviews. Why? Because it makes it easier to get a feel for their candidates. Not only that, but recent technological advancements allow you to record your video interviews.
This can be particularly useful when it comes to making the final decision and selecting the right customer service representative for the job. Interviews are intense experiences, both for the interviewer and the interviewee. This means that no matter how good your note-taking skills are, you may miss out on crucial information regarding your candidate.
Having a virtual meeting assistant record, transcribe, analyze, and summarize your interview allows you to be fully present, while also providing you with all the resources you need to make the right decision when that time comes.
The MeetGeek AI virtual assistant allows you to fully engage in the recruitment process while it takes care of all of your note-taking responsibilities!
2. Encourage Candidates to Use a Unique Approach
All great customer service representatives possess various skills, many of which are abstract. You need to tailor your approach in a way that allows you to identify these qualities. The easiest way to do this is by asking questions that require extensive, well-argued answers. For instance, ask your candidate to describe a situation in which they identified a customer's underlying needs and solved their problem in a unique and creative way.
Interview questions that require candidates to tell a story or share their insights on a relevant topic will help you assess their ability to share ideas in a coherent, logical way. This also lets you read between the lines and identify any potential red flags.
3. Pay Attention to How They Listen
A competent problem solver is also a good listener. Great customer service employees possess the patience required to listen to a customer’s concern and respond appropriately, instead of providing solutions based on what they expect to hear.
Moreover, paying attention to how your interview candidates listen will show you whether they are able to adapt their tone and approach based on the particular situations they may encounter on the job.
The easiest way to do this is by posing complex questions during the customer service job interview. A candidate who is able to answer every part of your question attentively will not only prove that they’re an engaged listener, but also that they will treat your clients well.
4. Be Creative with Your Questions
Ordinary questions can only do so much in terms of helping you identify the best customer service representative for the job. That’s because they do not catch your candidates off guard, nor do they showcase how they react under pressure.
This is a less-than-ideal scenario since you’re looking for someone who is easily adaptable, as well as creative with their answers. That’s why we strongly recommend including questions that your candidates may not have the answers to.
Especially if they’re new to the customer service role, they will encounter situations in which they won’t know straight away how to respond — no matter how well-prepared they are. Carefully analyze their reaction to your query, and then dig deeper with a follow-up question.
Find the Best Customer Service Representatives for Your Agency Today!
Getting customer service interview questions right can be intimidating for hiring managers, especially given that the overall success of your business depends on how happy your customers are with your service or product.
If you prepare for your hiring process correctly, and know what to ask, why you’re asking it, and what to expect in terms of answers, you’re one step closer to finding the perfect candidate and building your dream customer support team.
It’s time to make your customer service hiring process even easier! Try MeetGeek for free to see exactly how a personal virtual AI meeting assistant can upgrade the way you perform interviews.
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