Establishing the right talent attraction strategy is essential to delivering a positive customer experience.

A poorly executed talent attraction strategy can negatively impact  your customer experience  in one of two ways:

• Not having enough staff to service your customers

• Hiring staff with the wrong skills, values and behaviours needed to deliver a positive Customer experience

Why is customer experience so important?

If customers receive a poor experience, your brand reputation, brand credibility and brand trustworthiness can be damaged, which directly impacts sales, customer loyalty, and your bottom line.

Research shows that businesses that provide the best customer experience have highly engaged employees. Companies with engaged employees are:

• 21% more productive (Gallup)

• Outperform their competition by 147%

• Have customer loyalty rates 233% higher than those that don’t!

How are customer needs changing?

In the digital age, with everything at their fingertips, customers expect a seamless, quick service. With more ways than ever of contacting companies and with more high-value, complex queries contact centres and customer service agents have a more diverse range of queries to solve not only over the phone but also interactions through chats, emails and social media.

How have businesses adapted to enhance customer experience?

Customer Service and delivering an exceptional experience is critical to the long-term success of any business, so companies are looking for ways to deliver customer service that leaves customers delighted and fosters brand loyalty and advocacy.

One leading insurance provider in the UK, has recently adapted their talent attraction strategy to focus on sourcing Claims Advisors who possess strong analytical and problem-solving skills, offering all their customers a one-call resolution service, instead of speaking to several different departments to get their query resolved.

In the UK energy sector the number of calls now being received by contact centre agents from customers worried about paying their energy bills has increased significantly. This has required energy providers to attract candidates who not only possess good listening skills but who can show empathy and consideration when resolving customer queries of a complex and sensitive nature.

Customer Experience: Top Tips for Businesses

The hiring challenges, faced by many talent acquisition leaders and heads of contact centres, are significant but not insurmountable. Here are some top tips for businesses to help find and retain the best talent:

Focus on skills rather than experience

With consumer behaviour inherently different, organisations recruiting Customer Services/Contact Centre workers must focus less on sourcing candidates with contact centre experience and instead seek to attract candidates with the right blend of skills, values and behaviours aligned to servicing their end customer’s needs (problem-solving, analytical, active listening, empathy). Businesses could be inadvertently turning away good talent if they solely focus on employing people with contact centre experience.

Provide candidates with a realistic job preview

Use your careers site to offer potential job applicants a realistic job preview, enabling them to see the type and nature of customer queries they will be required to help resolve and what skills they will need to succeed. This approach helps lower contact centre attrition rates, by ensuring candidates’ expectations of the job are met.

Reimagine your recruitment processes

Once key characteristics have been defined, companies must leverage candidate assessment tools to identify applicants that possess the right mix of skills and behaviours. This could include role plays or scenario-based activities as part of the recruitment process. By doing this, employers can give a real insight into what is expected of their employees.

Implement a comprehensive onboarding process

A well-structured onboarding process is crucial for setting the right foundation and ensuring that new hires understand from the outset your company’s values, vision, and customer experience goals. Provide them with the necessary training and resources to familiarise themselves with your products or services, customer personas, and communication channels. This will enable them to quickly adapt and deliver consistent, high-quality customer experiences from day one.

Encourage cross-functional collaboration

Customer experience is a team effort that involves multiple departments and touchpoints within  an organisation. Encourage collaboration and knowledge-sharing among different teams, such as marketing, sales, product development, and customer support. By fostering cross-functional collaboration, you create a holistic approach to delivering exceptional customer experiences, where all departments work together towards a common goal.

Measure and monitor customer satisfaction

Regularly assess and measure customer satisfaction through surveys, feedback forms, and customer reviews. Analyse the data collected to identify areas for improvement and address any pain points or customer concerns promptly. Use customer feedback as a valuable source of insights to continuously refine your customer experience strategy and align it with evolving customer needs.

Summary

Attracting and retaining talent that aligns with your customer experience goals is crucial for the success of your business. Vermelo RPO is a total talent solutions provider, helping connect clients with top talent.

With a proven track record within insurance, claims and contact centre and high-volume hiring, we help clients across the UK achieve their recruitment goals.

Get in touch to find out more: 01892 553360 | Send us an email