If you’ve had your hand in hiring for more than a minute, chances are, you’ve chosen the wrong candidate on at least one occasion. So, when I polled a group of managers about having recruiting regrets, I wasn’t surprised that everyone admitted to experiencing hirer’s remorse.
Finding the right fit for your team can be a real challenge — especially since the customer service role is often entry-level, where you hire more for personality and potential than you do for well-honed skills. To that end, I want to share five customer service hiring horror stories with you as told by those who lived through them*.
You may chuckle in understanding amusement or shed a tear in solidarity with the storyteller. But I can guarantee you’ll also cower in fear of these scenarios happening to you (perhaps again!).
*All names have been changed to protect the guilty!
We unwittingly hired a woman with a bad temper. Ava was sweet on the surface, but as soon as she experienced conflict, her attitude soured, and she got angry fast.
After about a week on the job, we overheard her screaming at a customer because they displayed frustration over a drawn-out problem. Rather than try to diffuse the situation, she escalated it instead. Unfortunately, Ava’s profanity-laden rant cost our company a major account, which also cost her her position.
We hired Courtney because she was so courteous and organized. For the first couple of weeks, everything went well. But then we started to get escalated complaints from our customers — and other customer service representatives.
Apparently, Courtney avoided contacting customers if she had bad news or knew they were already unhappy. That delay caused irritated customers to become irate, making everyone else’s job much harder. We tried to coach her so she could handle difficult situations calmly and confidently, but she ultimately quit days before we were going to fire her.
We loved Sam’s charming disposition. He could de-escalate any challenging conversation in minutes. However, after reviewing Sam’s output, we realized he was only taking half as many calls as the other customer service agents, putting more work on everyone else’s plate.
It turns out he was befriending many of the customers and having personal conversations with them. In fact, much of his time on the phone involved chit-chat and making social plans — not solving customer problems or selling products. When we called him out on it, he got defensive, saying his presence was boosting customer retention. We offered him one more shot, but he resigned effective immediately.
Bob had ten years of customer service experience in our industry and glowing references. So, hiring him seemed like a no-brainer. However, about a week after the initial training period, we started getting complaints that Bob’s service was less than stellar.
Apparently, he never took the time to learn about our products and services, so he kept giving customers the wrong information. His oversight sometimes led to customers making bad purchases (and always led to them getting angry!). We told Bob he needed to shape up fast and offered to help him learn the information. However, his mindset was that he knew the industry inside and out, so he didn’t need to invest more time studying. Ultimately, his poor attitude and work ethic cost him his job a few weeks later.
Laura’s resume checked all the boxes, and she interviewed like a champ. However, once she started fielding calls on her own, we noticed a major issue: she wasn’t entering notes into the system after each conversation. That meant customers had to repeat themselves when they called back because we didn’t have the history as a reference.
Laura’s failure to enter notes caused customer frustration, which often got taken out on other agents. We never figured out if Laura didn’t want to do that part of the job or if she consistently forgot about it. Either way, she didn’t last long at our company.
Are you shaking in your boots yet? I am just typing up these tales!
But there’s good news. You can reduce your chances of hiring an Ava, Courtney, Sam, Bob, Laura, or any other poor fit by having a thorough hiring process. Your hiring process should include a resume review, interviews, background and reference checks, and pre-employment testing. That last part is where we come in.
Omnia Group’s behavioral assessment can help you ensure your top candidate has the personality traits required to perform like an all-star. The assessment quickly measures their preferences, communication style, work approach, and more. The insight you gain will either confirm your hiring instincts or send you back to the resume pile. Either way, you’ll spend less time and money putting together a frighteningly effective team!
