A Guide to Preparing for a Customer Service Job Interview
Publié le 5 January 2024
Be ready to showcase your skills and abilities to get the job you want with a guide to preparing for a customer service job interview.
Knowing that you’ve got a customer service job interview in a few days can be nerve-racking, regardless of how much experience you have in the industry. With only a short time to impress your prospective employer, it’s easy to worry about how to present your professional and personal qualities.
Luckily, there’s one surefire way to reduce your anxiety as you go into a customer service job interview: preparing well. If you know what your interviewer is likely to ask, what you want to say, and what qualities and experiences you want to get across, you’ll be able to walk into the interview room with confidence.
But how can you make sure that you’re well prepared for your interview? If you want to get your dream customer service job, read on to find our practical guide to preparing for a customer service job interview.
What are employers looking for in a customer service job interview?
When you’re preparing for a job interview, it’s important to start at the end: think about what the ideal candidate looks like and how you can get yourself as close as possible to that ideal. While employers are of course looking for some specific and technical things, perhaps like a knowledge of IVR systems, this is all about the qualities that customer service experts have.
By thinking about the specific skills that companies are searching for when they’re hiring a customer service rep, you’ll be able to consider how you can show off these qualities in your interview. Here are the main things that employers will want to see in you when you’re having your interview:
1. Communication skills
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Probably the most crucial customer service skill is being able to communicate effectively with others. In a role as a customer service rep, you communicate with customers and colleagues every day – and poor communication is a guarantee of a poor customer experience.
With only 45% of customers saying that they feel heard and understood when talking to a customer service rep, being an active and engaged listener is critical. It’s also important that you’re able to clearly communicate your solutions, while also remaining calm when talking to an angry customer.
When you’re in your interview, the interviewer won’t just be listening to the content of your answers; they’ll also be considering how effectively you communicate them, with both your words and body language. If you’re unable to be concise, clear, and convincing in your communication, you could struggle to get the job.
2. Knowledge about the company and role
It’s always a good idea to do some background research into the company that you’re hoping will hire you. This is especially important in a customer service job interview, as you’ll have to have an understanding of the company’s products or services in order to answer customers’ queries.
Additionally, as many companies are increasingly integrating artificial intelligence into their customer service processes, having some knowledge about how AI is used in customer interactions and problem-solving can set you apart from other candidates.
Before your job interview, make sure that you’ve searched through the organization’s website and social media profiles – you’ll want to appear like you know what you’re getting into. Researching a company is crucial if you want to impress your interviewer.
3. Problem-solving abilities
A customer service job can at times feel like a sequence of different problems to solve. These will vary from responding to customers’ issues with a specific product to fixing call centre phone systems if they stop working.
This variety means that interviewers look for candidates who can think on their feet in order to respond to these problems, so expect them to ask you to come up with a solution to a hypothetical problem during your interview.
4. Enthusiasm and commitment
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In any interview, the hiring organization will be looking for someone who is enthusiastic and committed to the role. This is especially true in customer service, as you’ll be the face and voice of the company. Showing passion for customer service will surely impress your interviewer and help to convince them that you’re the right fit for the role.
5. Patience and care
Working with customers can be a challenging endeavour at times. It’s important that you’re able to show that you’d deal with an angry customer with a patient and calm approach, while also showing that you care for every customer and their individual needs. After all, 60% of customers have switched brands after a poor customer service experience.
6. Teamwork
Proving that you’re able to work collaboratively is a crucial part of any customer service job interview. You’ll have to work with other colleagues in your customer service, as well as communicate effectively with other departments in order to solve customers’ issues. You may not become best friends with everyone, but it’s important to demonstrate that you will maintain a professional relationship with your colleagues, even the difficult ones.
Customer service interview questions – and how to answer them
It’s all well and good knowing the sort of qualities that interviewers will be looking for when they’re talking to you, but what about some practical advice to help you reach your full potential in the interview room? After all, it’s easy for your nerves to get the better of you and make you freeze up.
In order to best prepare yourself, you should practice answering the sort of questions that you’ll be asked. This will mean that your answers become second nature to you once you’re actually having the interview. Here are some of the most common customer service job interview questions:
1. Why do you want to work in customer service?
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This sort of question is pretty widespread, regardless of which specific role you’re applying to, so be prepared to encounter it if you’re looking for best paying jobs in other customer services. With this question, the interviewer wants to know what motivates you to get out of bed in the morning – if you don’t have a solid answer, they’ll start to question your commitment to the role.
There isn’t one right answer to this question. Instead, you’ll have to think about what first attracted you to a customer service job. This can be anything from enjoying solving problems to deeply valuing providing good experiences to consumers.
2. What does good customer service look like to you?
With this question, your interviewer wants to know the sorts of standards that you’ll hold yourself to when working as a customer service rep. If your expectations of good customer service are basic or lazy, your interviewers will assume that you’ll fail to go the extra mile when working with them.
When answering this question, try to think of an example – either in your work experience or in your experience as a customer – that you can draw on to further explain your understanding of excellent customer service.
3. Tell us about yourself
This question is often dreaded by interviewees. Talking about ourselves rarely comes naturally and this question can seem so unstructured and open-ended that it’s difficult to know where to start.
You should keep in mind that although this question might seem wide-ranging, the interviewer wants to know about your suitability for a customer service job. Use the qualities that we’ve highlighted above and give clear examples of when you’ve shown those qualities in the past.
4. Why would you be a good fit for our company?
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When you’re answering this question, make sure to show that you’ve done your research on the organization and its products or services. You should describe why you think you’ll fit into their company culture, as well as what you’ll specifically bring to the table.
It might also help to have a personal anecdote describing your experience with the company, especially if their products or services are widely used. This can help you to establish a connection with the company before you’ve even joined them.
5. Tell us about a time you had to deal with a difficult customer
While this is just one example of a behavioral interview question (which asks for you to give a past experience to show off your skills and competencies), it’s a pretty common one in the world of customer service job interviews. That’s because dealing with a difficult customer can be one of the most challenging things that you’ll encounter in a customer service job.
You’ll want to choose an experience that was resolved effectively. However, you’ll also need to show that you had a clear and effective process for dealing with the customer. Try to think about times when you’ve successfully de-escalated a situation and been able to neutralize an angry customer’s negative emotions.
Interviewers will be looking for someone who can stay calm above all else, so emphasize your abilities to remain cool in a potentially difficult conversation. You’ll also want to show off qualities like empathy and strong communication skills when explaining your experience.
Customer service job interview preparation best practices
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Now that you know some of the most common customer experience job interview questions, you can prepare some answers ahead of your interview. However, don’t become totally reliant on these pre-prepared answers. Here are some broader best practices to keep in mind when you enter your interview:
1. Get to grips with the STAR method
When you’re preparing for behavioral interview questions, you won’t be able to create answers for every possible question that could come up. However, you can use the STAR (situation, task, action, results) method to make sure that your answers are clear and well-structured.
Firstly, your answer should describe the situation so that the interviewer knows the context of your example. Then you should explain the task or problem that you had to deal with, such as a customer complaining about the quality of a product. This will be followed by your action – describe what you did to resolve the issue. Finish with the results, so explain the outcome of your actions.
Using this method will mean that your answers will be well-structured, regardless of the specific questions that you’re asked.
2. Collect examples and be ready to talk about them
Of course, the STAR method relies on you being able to talk about some examples in your work history that are relevant to the questions being asked. This means that it can be helpful to spend some time before the interview collecting examples that might be useful.
Think back to some of the moments at work where you’ve felt proud or pleased with an outcome – however, it might also be useful to think about moments where you failed to get the outcome that you wanted to show your interviewer that you’re able to reflect critically on your work.
If you’ve not got a lot of experience in customer experience, try to think of examples where you’ve had to solve problems, work as part of a team, or talk with strangers to achieve a goal in other forms of work or your education.
3. Prepare some intelligent questions
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You can be pretty confident that your interviewer will give you an opportunity to ask questions towards the end of the interview. Failing to come up with at least one question could put off your interviewer – you want to appear engaged and interested in the interview process, so you should always take up this opportunity.
To ensure that this isn’t just performative, however, you should prepare some questions in advance. You might want to ask about management structures – such as by asking what is call centre management in the organization – or inquire more about the specific responsibilities of the role and its opportunities for progression.
Fail to prepare? Prepare to fail in your customer experience job interview
With almost 20% of companies seeing a drop in the quality of customer service over the last couple of years, you should assume that any interview for a customer service job will be thorough so that they can be sure that you’re a high-quality candidate.
By following our guide for preparing for a customer experience job interview, you can be as confident as possible going into your interview. Ensure that you demonstrate qualities such as enthusiasm and patience, while also preparing ahead for common questions. With this preparation, you can stop being so worried about your interview!
