Customer Service refers to a set of processes and best practices that seek to improve the interactions between customers and businesses during all stages of the purchasing process. Customer Service starts from the moment a customer becomes interested in a business and their products. This continues over months or years after their purchase.
The end goal of customer service is to make sure that every single customer has a pleasant experience when interacting with business. According to BLS, the median pay of a customer service representative is $36,920.
According to BLS, 361,700 job openings for customer service representatives are projected each year. The project employment for customer service representatives is 2,888,800 till 2030.
According to BLS, 2,923,400 jobs were given to customer service representatives in 2020. To make the best out of your career, here’s how you can be better prepared for the Customer Service interviews and beat the competition to get the job of your dreams.
1. What Customer Service Means To You?
Any job you are going for, any customer service role, they are going to ask this question. This means that you’ve looked into customer service, you understand what it means and how important it is from a customer perspective.
Here’s how you can answer-
“Customer Service can literally make or break a business. Therefore, I fully understand how important it is for your business to not only flourish, but to stay at the top of its field. To me, customer service means 4 things. These are:
- Outstanding Service
- Superior Products
- Making the Customer Feel Valued
- Rapid Response Times
Well, Outstanding service means as soon as a customer walks through the door, they are looked after until they leave. This does not mean putting undue pressure on them to make a purchase, but instead, it means looking after them, listening to them, if required, and assisting them through the buying process.
Superior Products means making sure the products we’re selling are the best they can be. Also, resolving any issues quickly if things do go wrong.
Making the customer feel valued is not just about offering them the best prices or deals. It is more about paying attention to what they want, listening to their concerns, answering any questions and also following up after the purchase has been made to make sure everything is as expected.
Rapid response times mean responding to queries or complaints as fast as possible. There are too many businesses out there who take too long to respond to customer queries or complaints, and this often ends up leading to negative reviews or comments online.
So, overall, customer service to me is absolutely vital to making sure a business not only survives, but also thrives and stays ahead of the competition. If a customer is valued and looked after, they will not only come back time and time. But they will also tell their friends and family about their positive experience with your company.”
In short, just mention these 4 points and elaborate on them as mentioned above.
2. Tell Me About a Time When You Turned an Unhappy Customer into a Happy one.
“I was working in customer service assistance in a well known retail store. One day, a customer came storming over to the customer service desk, slammed down a box containing one of our products and began shouting quite loudly how unhappy he was.
I immediately started listening to him intently without saying a word, with the intention of allowing him to vent off and effectively say how he felt. As soon as an opening appeared, I explained to him how sorry I was for the issues he had been experiencing with the products and that I would put right the problem immediately.
As soon as I said these things, he began to calm down. I explained to him that, if it was me in his situation, I would feel exactly the same, and therefore, I could fully appreciate his concerns.
I went on to explain to him that I could immediately replace the product he had bought, and that I would just need a few minutes to go into our store room to find the replacement product. Before I went off, I asked him if I could get a drink whilst he waited.
Once I returned with the new product, I decided to open it up in front of him to make sure the replacement was not damaged like the initial product he had reviewed. Everything was fine and the customer appeared happy.
I then decided to go the extra mile, one step further, and gave him a $20 credit voucher that could be redeemed against any other product in store. I told the customer I wanted to do this for him as he had the trouble of having to spend time and fuel coming back into the store to get a replacement.
I then apologised once more for the inconvenience and he appeared more than happy with the resolution.
Whenever I come across an upset dissatisfied or angry customer, I always go that extra mile to resolve the problem as I think it is very important to keep a customer for as long as possible.”
You can also put your experience in such a detailed and clear way as mentioned above.
3. What Are The Top 3 Qualities Everyone Who Works in Customer Service Must Have to Succeed?
“Wow! That’s a great question! I believe the top 3 qualities are commitment, patience and effective communication skills.
Commitment is essential as you need to be committed to the customer, committed to delivering outstanding customer service, committed to working hard to improve asn resolve problems as and when they occur and also committee to being a positive role model for the company.
Patience is needed because working within a customer service role can be challenging, especially if you are dealing with a difficult or unhappy customer. Patience is also required because you have to continually look for ways to improve and develop the customer service experience.
Effective communication skills are absolutely key when working within a customer service role. This means both listening and speaking! How and what you say to a customer, whether in person or via mail, can have a significant impact on the customer service experience.
You also have to be a great listener when working in a customer service role and you also have to use appropriate body language when required. There are also many other qualities needed, such as having a caring nature, flexibility, an ability to work under pressure, and also being open to continually improving and developing as a customer service representative.”
4. What Steps Would You Follow When Dealing With a Customer Complaint?
“I have to deal with a few customer complaints in my career to date and I believe I am very effective at it. The steps I would follow include:
Step 1 – Listening intently to the customer and their complaint. This involved using effective listening skills, such as demonstrating empathy and nodding to show the customer I am taking onboard their comments and concerns.
Step 2 – I would then apologise if the situation dictates the need to. If we are in the wrong, I will always express how sorry I am for the issue and that I will do my utmost to resolve the issue for them as soon as possible.
Step 3 – I will take positive and immediate steps to resolve the issue whilst keeping the customer informed and updated on my progress.
Step 4 – Once I have resolved the issue I would then check to see if they were happy with what I had done. If they were not, I would go the extra mile to resolve the issue.
Step 5 – Once the complaint had been resolved, I would apologise once again and then contact the customer a few days later to check that everything was still to their satisfaction.
Finally, if the complaint was a result of an issue or an error within the business, I would take steps to rectify it so that it does not happen again.”
5. Tell Me About a Time When You Had to Work Under Pressure in a Busy Customer Service Environment?
Use STAR technique to answer this question. STAR stands for-
S – Situation
T – Task that had to be done
A – Action that you took
R – Result following your action
“One Saturday morning in the build-up to Christmas, I received a phone call from my manager asking me if I would come in at short notice to help out as the store had become unexpectedly busy. I immediately said yes and made my way to the store.
Once I arrived I could not believe how busy it was! The store was absolutely packed, so I set to work straight away serving and helping customers at the customer service desk. At one point during the day, our card payment system began to play up and customer payments were taking longer to go through. This then resulted in the queues becoming increasingly longer.
I decided to come up with an innovative way to reduce the customer waiting times and relieve some of the pressure on the team. I went along the queue and asked all customers who wanted to pay by cash to follow me to a different check out desk.
This immediately halved the size of the queue and my manager thanked me for thinking on my feet and coming with a resolution to the problem.
Once the store had closed at the end of the day, we got together as a team to see if there was a way we could improve the payments system to prevent it from slowing up in the future. That meeting resulted in us making some improvements to the customer service experience within the store.”
This answer shows your flexibility, you are thinking on your feet and coming up with a resolution to the problem.
6. Why Do You Want to Work in Customer Service?
Customer Service requires a certain talent and level of skill because you have to be patient and it’s not easy working in a customer service role. So they would want to know why you want to work in it because they don’t want people that just come along for the money. They want someone who is going to stay.
“I am very much a people person who loves going out of their way to make people happy. I would not like to be sat in an office working behind a computer and having already experienced a customer service role, it is one I very much want to work within.
I thrive and feel happiest in an environment where delivering outstanding customer service is key. I understand that customer service work can be difficult at times, but I love the challenge this type of role presents and I would not want to work in any other environment.
I particularly enjoy when the pressure is on to deliver great customer service; for example, when a customer is not happy and it is down to me to resolve their complaint, or if it is unexpectedly busy and the team has to work exceptionally hard to deliver great service.
I am a conscientious, caring and flexible person who simply enjoys working with people and I believe I can make a positive impact within the role.”
7. What Have You Done to be a Better Customer Service Representative?
Here, they want to see what you have done to improve yourself.
“I am always looking for ways to improve from a professional perspective, to begin with, following the annual appraisals with my line manager. I will always reflect upon my work and performance and look for ways to improve.
For example, following my last appraisal I wanted to improve my written communication skills, so I embarked upon a 3 month distance learning course.
If there is ever a quiet period at work, I always carry out some personal development by reading self-development books and reviewing my work performance from the previous week to make sure I am continually improving and meeting my targets.
Finally, to make sure I am a positive role model for the company, I will often revisit the company’s customer service charter to make sure what I am doing at work is in line.”
5 Things to NOT Say in a Job Interview
1. Don’t Talk Bad About Your Company
Don’t say you didn’t like working in your previous company. Even if you hate your company or your boss, when they ask you questions if you liked working in your previous company, just say yes.
Just say that you had to leave for greater opportunity and more responsibilities. If you would say that you didn’t like working there then they are going to assume that it will be no time, you’ll be saying the same things about them when they hire you.
They will think that you will find reasons not to like your company or your boss.
2. I Will Do Anything
A lot of candidates go in and they are so desperate to work at a job, they’ll say “I will do anything”. These candidates are the ones that are unemployed for quite a few months, they are desperate for a job and they will actually do anything.
You would end up showing a certain level of desperation that just doesn’t come out very well. When you go for an interview, you would want to talk about what you can do and the value you can bring and that you are excited to do it.
You have to hold tight to your values and beliefs because if you won’t then you will be unhappy just after 2 months of doing that job. Employers are very smart, they know that if you tell them that ‘I’ll take whatever you got’, and if the employers give it to you, you will hate this job after 2-3 months.
3. Don’t Tell Them That You Are Self-Starter or Quick Learner
When the employers ask you, ‘Tell me about yourself?’, don’t tell them that you are ‘self-starter’ or ‘result oriented’. You actually need to say how you can do those things, put it in context.
For instance, when interviewing for a management position, don’t say ‘I’m a great leader’, talk about how you have led people. Tell about the teams you have built and assembled to work on certain projects.
Instead of using the term ‘result-oriented’, tell them about the project details that you completed and you finished on time and under budget. Always put things in context and show them how you have done this before.
4. Don’t Tell Them That You Don’t Know How To Do This
Don’t say to any interviewer that ‘I don’t know how to do that’ or ‘I’ve no idea’. That’s the worst possible thing you can say, even if it’s the truth. When you don’t know how to do a certain task, take a second before answering and then connect it to something that’s similar to what you’ve done and tell them about that.
Say “I haven’t done that exact thing, but I’ve done something similar”. This shows that you at least have some level of understanding of what they are talking about. If you will not show any level of understanding about the question, that’s a red flag against you.
Most likely it’s going to be a competency question and if you know anything about competency questions, those are weighted the heaviest. If you miss one or two competency questions, that could wipe you out in the interview.
5. Don’t Ask Them About Their Company
When you ask the employer about the company, that shows that you didn’t do any research and preparation on this company. Don’t ask them what they do here. This shows that you have no level of excitement about this company.
There are many hungry job seekers out there who want these positions and they are going to beat you over tenfold. They are going to be sharper and on their game. They will be talking about their experiences and how they relate to this job.
Take that extra step before your next job interview and spend some time researching the position. Gather as much information as you can.
