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Call Center Hiring Featured ArticleCall Center Hiring: Understanding Agent Performance and Business OutcomesJune 24, 2009
By Stefania Viscusi, Assignment Desk Editor
With today’s down economy and attendant job losses, cost-cutting measures and a market that makes winning new customers more difficult than ever, the contact center industry is facing new, critical challenges.
It's essential, in this environment, to find and retain quality hires. Because attrition rates plague the call center industry more than others, tools that help businesses find and keep the right hires have become far more than useful. They're necessary.
FurstPerson helps call center hiring managers find, hire, and keep the right employees with simulation tools, assessment tests and other resources.
Recently, the company released a new white paper, “8 Steps to Great Contact Center Hiring,” which offers insight into the necessary steps for successful call center hiring.
The first two steps in this list include the need to understand and define desired business outcomes, and getting a grasp of which agent performance metrics tie into achieving those outcomes.
These steps are critical to the initial hiring process, because once businesses understand how they drive revenue, they can focus on hiring agents with the skills to assist them in continuing to improve their margin, profit and revenue growth. Examples of specific outcomes can include a goal to drive top line revenue or reduce operating costs, or both.
Understanding these goals eases the hiring process by helping hiring managers narrow down performance metrics needed.
These metrics should align with the desired business outcomes and track a candidate’s performance to determine their ability to succeed in the job function.
Specific examples include measuring customer satisfaction metrics to see if an agent is able to help the company meet its goal of reduced customer churn, or measuring and tracking average handle times to check if a candidate will help the company reach their goal to reduce operating costs.
Understanding how agent performance and business outcomes relate to one another early on in the hiring process helps managers to save time reviewing performance metrics and ensures groups within the business are aligned – reducing barriers and gaining quality hires.
For more, check out the Call Center Hiring channel on TMCnet.
Stefania Viscusi is an assignment editor for TMCnet, covering VoIP, CRM, call center and wireless technologies. To read more of Stefania’s articles, please visit her columnist page.  
Call Center Hiring is a web-based virtual interviewing application that helps you expand your candidate pool, interview more applicants in less time, and hire the best ones more quickly.
 White Paper: Improving Hiring PerformanceThe Business Case for Virtual Interviewing. A Business Optimization White Paper Effective customer service operations starts with hiring people with the right communication, technical, critical thinking and language skills. IRT Case Study: Streamline Hiring Process
  Business Transformation RadioPopular ArticlesCall Center Hiring Customer TestimonialsWith InterviewIQ, the quality of prospective employees has risen dramatically. Our recruiters can focus their attention on detailed candidate evaluation instead of trying to schedule the initial interview. Dick Eychner Our customers have come to expect exceptional service and our crewmembers continue to deliver on each and every flight. HireIQ has demonstrated its ability to not only help us hire the best possible candidates, but to do so at a reduced cost of recruitment. Megan White |