Employee selection systems reduce turnover

Telemarketing & Call Center Solutions, Jan 1997 by Laurie Anderson

With the cost of increasingly sophisticated call center equipment and facilities, it is surprising that 70 percent of the cost of running the average call center is related to staff. Staff turnover, which often exceeds 50 percent and can reach 75 to 100 percent in large call centers, contributes to the high ratio of staff costs to overall operating costs.

Staff turnover is of concern to call centers because of the significant investment that is usually made in worker training. In addition, a constant influx of new workers makes it difficult to keep productivity high and provide consistent customer service.

What is the key to reducing staff turnover, thereby improving productivity, customer service and customer retention? One answer is an effective employee selection system. Good employee selection techniques do more than identify people who have call center experience. They identify staff members who have the potential to succeed even if they lack experience. An employee selection system can also help address staff shortages that are resulting from the fast growth of call centers in many industries.

A study recently published by the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC), "Measuring Call Center Performance," affirms that "the hiring and screening process is vital to successful call center operation because the selection of skilled, professional representatives has a direct impact on customer satisfaction and service levels."

A proper employee selection system includes: structured interviews, professionally developed skills assessments and indepth training.

Each element is important on its own and in combination with the other two. Like a threelegged stool, if one leg is missing, the other two cannot do their jobs. The elements of a selection system all work together, or they do not work at all.

No Experience Required

A complete selection system identifies and prepares candidates for call center positions regardless of past experience because experience is not always an indicator of success on the job.

With current unemployment rates under three percent in many areas, call center representatives are in demand. Consequently, people who leave a job due to poor performance can usually find another similar position. Because these employees have experience, they recycle themselves from one call center to another, their pattern of poor performance going undetected for years.

Replacing the requirement of experience with the requirement of aptitude for the job guards against this "recycling" and creates a much wider pool of candidates.

Interviews Uncover Skills

Starting with the interview, a selection system's goal is to identify people who have the potential to succeed in a specific call center environment as well as those who are better suited to other employment. The interview should collect information on work experience, skills, goals and preferences, all of which help determine if a candidate is a good fit for a call center.

"The interview is also an opportunity to detect "soft skills" that are important to a call center employee's success," said Linda Lauritzen, director of Customer Service for Manpower, a staffing firm that provides supplemental personnel to call centers and many other types of businesses. "These include the ability to listen, voice quality and service or sales orientation." The APQC study lists customer service skills, courtesy and interpersonal skills as most important to call center success because customers value these attributes.

Skills Assessments Reveal Strengths

The next step in the selection process is skills testing. And the first step in skills testing is to determine what skills you need the test to reveal. To identify the exact combination of skills required in your call center, it is best to use a formal job analysis process. You may need assistance from a reputable consulting firm or university to conduct a proper job analysis. These same experts can help you develop skills tests that meet Equal Employment Opportunity Commission standards. These standards assure that a test is fair to all applicants, and that it assesses only the skills required for the job.

To eliminate test anxiety, assure applicants that your tests are designed to identify their strengths - not simply to expose their weaknesses. In fact, you may want to label the tests "skills assessments," which is a more accurate term. Manpower relies on three test modules - taking telephone orders, changing customer orders and account files, and providing quality service. "All of them require applicants to follow detailed written and verbal instructions, follow specific company policies and procedures, use a variety of resources, and enter or access information in an automated system," said Lauritzen. "The wide range of specific skills, abilities and personal characteristics these modules measure include attention to detail, resourcefulness, the ability to listen carefully, to work quickly and efficiently, to solve problems and to make decisions."