If You Want to Hire Frogs, All You Have to Do is Croak


by Leonard Buchholz - Date: 2007-03-11 - Word Count: 464 Share This!

I was talking with a friend recently about Customer Service personnel and what makes a good person become great in Customer Service.

I thought about it and narrowed it down to 3 basic things.

Friendliness.

Intelligence.

Training.

Then he asked me how would I attract a friendly, intelligent and trainable person. I told him I would write an ad, and then he could use it, if he wished.

I then proceeded to read about oh, 1000 or so Customer Service ads on various job boards to see if there was one that I thought would work. I did not find many.

Most were something like this. "Rare (unique, unusual, unbelievable) opportunity for hard working (dedicated, industrious, diligent) individual looking for exciting (unbelievable, fantastic, wonderful) career with our company. Duties include answering phones (heavy phone interaction, phone calls, and phone sales), data entry, interaction with customers and company personnel, order entry and processing (computer order entry, computer use). Skills should include Outlook (Microsoft Office Suite, Excel), phone answering skills, able to multitask (work like a dog), handle busy office environment (work with little or no supervision) and be a team player (Don't be a troublemaker). Pay commensurate with experience. Benefits available. We are an EOE."

You could find this ad or about one million similar to it anywhere you want on any job board you want. It's become the "All for one, one for all" ad.

If I were looking for the best in Customer Service I might want to appeal to those that really want to be in Customer Service.

The ad might sound like this.

"Our company is looking for a person we can trust to work with our most valuable asset, our Customers. The individual we seek will have certain personality traits that we know really make excellent representatives for our company. Those qualities include friendliness, honesty, dependability, trustworthiness, intelligence and diligence. Preferred applicants will have a phone presence, understand that listening is more important than being right and be willing to train to meet company standards of professionalism and education.

Base skill set should include Microsoft office computer, basic phone answering and greeting technique and assertive communication skills. We prize friendliness and intelligence above all other skill sets however, and would be willing to provide training to the person who has those qualities. We are interactive in our interviews and ask for demonstrations of competency through testing, role play and conversation. Please apply if you have the core traits of friendliness and intelligence. EOE"

If you ran ads that looked like that or similar, you would attract people that are interested in being "friendly, honest, dependable, trustworthy" and would not have Eyores and Schleprocks on your front line.

There is a catch though. You have to be willing to follow through on your end. By providing the training and support those Customer Service Professionals need.


Related Tags: help, value, job, life, hire, service, advertise, customer, skill, want, core, ad, meet, board, employee, fire

Leonard Buchholz leads seminars in Customer Service, Attitude and Skills and Management. He also provides coaching and consulting in Customer Service. He resides in Southern California and you can reach him at 760-529-5635 or email him at selfemployedagent@cox.net.

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