There’s no question that it’s challenging to find the ideal employee to hire – one who will be a perfect fit for your individual contact center. With so many factors to take into consideration, such as previous experience, references, education, personality tests, aptitude tests, and interview performance, the decision-making process can be overwhelming. And even when you finally whittle the applicant list down to one, your new hire may still not end up working out after all.

Employee turnover can be discouraging, but there’s no reason to throw your hands up in despair. The temptation can sometimes be to blame the company, or even the industry, lamenting that high turnover is just part of the way things are.

But wait just a minute here! What are you talking about? Your contact center is a great place to work! Otherwise, why would you still be there? For that matter, take a look around you. Why would anyone still be there? We’re willing to bet that you have many loyal, hard-working employees who are perfectly happy in their jobs at your contact center.  What you need to do is approach turnover from a different angle. Rather than dwelling on what it is that makes employees leave, you should ask yourself what it is that makes them stay.     

Now here’s the really important part. The question is not what it is about your company that makes them stay, but rather, what it is about those particular employees that makes them stay. Your mission, very simply, is to hire more people like them. The following three steps map out the plan:

1.     First of all, gather data on your contact center’s successful hires – the high-performing employees who are in it for the long haul. What do they all have in common? Maybe every one of them has had previous contact center experience. Maybe they all scored in a certain range on a pre-employment test your company administers. Check the information they gave when they were hired – even down to seemingly unimportant details like how long their commute is. You want to have a 360-degree understanding of what makes an employee the right material for your contact center.

2.     Next, use this information when selecting applicants to interview. Your time is valuable, so if you already know that every successful employee at your contact center had at least two years of previous experience before coming on board, there’s no point in interviewing people without that background. The time you save here can be put into a more detailed and thorough interview process for the qualified candidates. 

3.     Finally, carefully interview your chosen applicants with success in mind.  Sometimes, hiring decisions are made based mostly on “gut feeling.” But first impressions can be deceiving. Be sure to ask each interviewee exactly the same questions, and be as objective as possible when comparing their answers with those of the other candidates.  Knowing from the get-go that each applicant already fits your profile of an ideal employee will allow you to enter each interview assuming a successful match, and that attitude can counteract any subconscious preconceived notions masquerading as “gut feelings.”

Once you’ve hired your ideal employees, it’s just a matter of training them and setting them loose to do their thing. And that’s where we come in. KOVA’s Workforce Management System can help you train your contact center employees, monitor the quality of their customer service once they’re in the trenches, and keep you informed throughout the entire process.  Interested? Give us a call today.