Telephone interview for call centre job

Amara

Hi!
I'm having a telephone interview for customer advisor job in the contact centre. What kind of questions can I expect? How to prepare myself? This most awful one: What can you offer to company? I've been running my own , small cleaning business for seven years.

marliepanda

https://www.monster.co.uk/career-advice/article/what-are-the-most-common-job-interview-questions

With it being for a phone based job make sure your phone manner is tip top

tacpot12

If you have been running your own cleaning business for 7 years, you have quite a lot to offer them: you should make points about your reliability, your maturity, that you are used to having to work quickly but to a high standard, and that you have knowledge of running a business, complying with legislation and taxation rules, managing customer interactions (I wouldn't talk about any customer complaints unless you have a really successful story you can tell - any situation where you have been able to turnaround a customer complaint into a successful relationship and/or obtain referrals via the customer would be worth highlighting).

Good luck with the interview.

Les79

When I got interviewed for a call center (applied for a few) a few years ago, they generally asked basic competency questions. Things like "give an example of when you have provided good customer service" etc.

Depends on the type of call center you are applying for as well.. Some of them operate a bum on seat policy, whereby they'll be happy to pick up Mr/Ms A. Smackhead off the street.... They may just ask you questions designed to get you on the books rather than competency-based.

Amara

Thanks for your replies.
Tacpot12, I've just realised how experienced I am :eek::) Maybe it's my problem, I'm not able to demostrate my skills. I've got customers who stayed with me from very beginning of my business, so I have to do something right
It's a vacancy for large bank, so , hopefully, it's competency test rather then something else.

parking_question_chap

As above, its pretty much all going to be competency based.

Basically you need to google "competency questions for telephone advisor" and write down lots of examples (they love asking you for examples) and have them in front of you for the phone call. Make them up if you want, they wont know. Just dont read them off word for word, add a few erms and hmms for effect.

Its pretty easy really, as long as you have done enough work before hand.

Ja7188

You may also get asked about how you're going to transition from a position of running your own business to becoming what sounds like a small cog in a big machine - they may have concerns that you'll get fed up and leave very quickly. Worth having a think about how you'll answer this if it comes up...

Amara

Ja7188 wrote: »

You may also get asked about how you're going to transition from a position of running your own business to becoming what sounds like a small cog in a big machine - they may have concerns that you'll get fed up and leave very quickly. Worth having a think about how you'll answer this if it comes up...

Good point. I enjoy running my business and , to be honest, I'm not entirely sure is it a right move for me. I've tried to grow it, but finding right staff is very hard. I want to figure out, what is the best for me.

Woolco

Hi. I cant add much but good luck and I hope you get the job!

Doshwaster

My experience of working in some call centres is that they often have such high turnover levels that they will take anyone capable of stringing a few words together.

The most important thing for the telephone interview is to show that you have a clear, calm and friendly voice. You can train people about what they say about the company's products and services but it's hard to deal with someone who mumbled, gets flustered or sounds like they don't care.

MothballsWallet

Amara wrote: »

Hi!
I'm having a telephone interview for customer advisor job in the contact centre. What kind of questions can I expect? How to prepare myself? This most awful one: What can you offer to company? I've been running my own , small cleaning business for seven years.

Les79 wrote: »

When I got interviewed for a call center (applied for a few) a few years ago, they generally asked basic competency questions. Things like "give an example of when you have provided good customer service" etc.

Depends on the type of call center you are applying for as well.. Some of them operate a bum on seat policy, whereby they'll be happy to pick up Mr/Ms A. Smackhead off the street.... They may just ask you questions designed to get you on the books rather than competency-based.

Good point Les - Amara, you might want to google for competency questions.

With these, you always need to think in terms of "STAR" or "STAR-L": S = Situation, Task, Actions, Result (, Lessons Learned) and phrase your answers to fit with these.

And it's a good idea to make notes to help you. The nice thing about a phone interview is that the interviewer can't see you referencing them so you can glance at them while you speak or while they're asking the question.