In your daily conversations, make a specific effort to never interrupt people. Always let them completely finish what they are saying, even if they take way too long. When you are having a misunderstanding with someone and you start to get agitated, take deep breaths and remind yourself to stay calm. Having a great deal of patience will allow customers the time they need to explain their concerns and help you actively assist them along the way.
Since memorization skills are so helpful anyway, this is a good place to start. There is a fairly standard phonetic alphabet, but there are variations, so learn both if possible. An internet search for “phonetic alphabet” will return a simple graph listing all of the code letters. For example, if someone is speaking and spells their name to you “B-e-t-t-y,” you may be unclear if they said B or P, since they have similar sounds. So you can ask, “Is that B as in Bravo?” which helps clear things up.
Start building your capacity of doing and thinking more than one thing at a time. Try listening to someone talk, perhaps through headphones listening to a podcast, while also searching the internet for something completely different. You must be taking in the information through both listening and reading your screen. Having a tidy workspace, being organized when note-taking, developing great time management, and prioritizing will help you manage your daily workload and multitask.
Someone who says they are only willing to work a regular 9-5 shift may be less likely to be hired than someone who is willing to work nights. Make an honest assessment of your willingness and ability to work the types of hours you may be asked to work. If you know you can’t be awake during night time, don’t say you are able to.
Tampa, Florida, Salt Lake City, Utah, and San Antonio, Texas are a few cities that have a high number of call center employees. But most states have at least a few call centers.
Cover letters are all about selling yourself as the best candidate for the job, so don’t be afraid to talk yourself up, while being honest. Think of the jobs you have held so far and highlight the skills from those that would translate well to the call center model. You can also mention specific skills you have working with computers or any experience that involved customer service or customer relations. Make sure to look over the cover letter a few times to make it straightforward and informative, and edit it thoroughly to make sure there are no errors. You can even have a friend check it over to see if you missed anything. Try your best to translate your customer service skills, your communication skills, and your problem solving skills into some kind of clean metric, as that is going to help the hiring manager not only understand what you’re capable of having those skills, but how those skills actually translate to good numbers for the company.
Examples of interview questions might be: “What can you tell me about yourself?” or “What are your weaknesses?” or “What would make you a good call center agent?” You can answer these by saying, “I enjoy meeting new people and typically find it easy to talk with strangers. I am a little weak in the area of learning things quickly, but I am very good at remembering what I’ve learned. I love to talk with people and help them figure out problems they are facing. ”
If they sell products, learn some of the different ones and the specifications. If they run customer service, find out what the customers have purchased. This is also just good knowledge for you to have to understand what types of calls your job would require.
You will make a stronger case for yourself as a candidate by telling the hiring person that you are interested in being able to stay with the company long-term and work your way up the ranks.
A couple ways to follow up would be to call the company and say, “I recently put in an application for a customer service job in your call center and I wanted to make sure my application was received. ” Or after an interview you can say, “I recently interviewed and I wanted to get some feedback and find out if there are any next steps I can take. ”
