Copyright (c) 2010 Ira Wolfe

Many companies are so focused on customer service that they have created entire departments dedicated to attending to the needs of their clients. Yet, these same companies have missed one major aspect of servicing customers; customer service is not a department, it is a way of dealing with people. And, unless your employees have the skills they need to do the job, your customers aren't going to be happy no matter how many CSRs you hire.

Sure, it's great to have a customer service department stocked with warm bodies that answer the phone within three rings, never keep a customer waiting on hold more than two minutes, and give their name as they ask "what can I do for you today." But if an employer doesn't hire employees with the right attitude and personality, any investment in recruitment and training will be wasted. Hiring the right employee ensures that training enables employees who are ready to learn and practice skills that provide real, value-driven service.

So, what should you do to ensure that the employees you can deliver excellent customer service? Support your employment decisions with pre-employment tests. Customer service skills can be learned; but a positive customer service attitude is not a naturally occurring characteristic in most people.

Many employees can politely address the needs of customers. Many can also express empathy when dealing with a particularly difficult situation. But, when push comes to shove, and a CSR is faced with handling the unknown, factors such as problem solving, logic, verbal fluency, and even mathematical abilities - and attitude - are what truly separate skilled customer service providers from mere switchboard operators.

A customer service skills test can provide you with information that can help you weed out a potential customer service genius from someone who may be better off placed in a non customer contact position. Use customer service pre employment tests to hire, promote, target skills training needs, drive performance reviews, and more. Customer service skills tests are easy to administer and provide a substantial return on a small investment.

Customer service skills tests are designed to measure important customer representative skills criteria such as procedural ability, decision making abilities, general reasoning, and basic skills such as communication, reading comprehension, mathematical ability, etc.

Ultimately, the quality of an organization's customer support staff reflects that company's willingness to dedicate resources to identify, target, and reinforce its customer service needs. Remember, customer service is not a department, it's a way of matching the right leadership, management, supervisory staff, and CSRs to the right positions within your organization.