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Secrets
of Hiring Great Support Reps Many
years ago, I faced a choice between two candidates for a software
position. One had completed a Ph.D. from a respected university,
and her thesis was on exactly the topic we were hiring for. The
other was a former coal miner who had recently retrained himself
in computer programming. Which one would you choose? As
luck would have it, our company offered positions to both candidates,
and the results confirmed my gut suspicions. The person with the
Ph.D. was at best an average performer who contributed few new ideas,
while the former coal miner turned out to be one of the most intelligent
and creative employees we had ever hired. In this article, I'd like
to share with you some of the reasons why I chose the coal miner,
and why you should too. One
of the biggest challenges in the technical support profession today
is keeping quality people at the other end of the phone. What compounds
this problem is the fact that two people with identical resumes,
who interview equally well, can have dramatically different performance
levels on the job. The good news, however, is that hiring great
support reps does not have to always be an expensive shot in the
dark. Here are some of my own personal tips to get the very best
out of your hiring decisions: Check
the learning curve. If you could only measure one thing in a new
support rep, measure this: how quickly they think on their feet
and adapt to new things. In my mind, a strong learning curve is
the single biggest predictor of success on the support front lines. This
is not the same thing as measuring existing computer skills. For
example, I have seen cases where two people can perform basic Windows
functions with equal aplomb - but it turns out later that one person
picked it up in a snap, while the other person required hours of
painstaking practice by rote to get to the same point. You can't
always tell which person is which by simply observing the finished
product. You must observe them trying something new to assess how
quickly they learn. I
never interview someone without a laptop computer tucked under my
arm, and I always offer candidates a demo
of our company's foodservice management software. Here is a sample
of some of the things I look for in this demo: I
first ask the candidate if they would like to drive.* If they reply that they would rather watch me demonstrate
the product, then (like the proverbial game show buzzer) BZZZZ!
On to the next candidate. One
menu has a nice, fat button marked Recipe.* I tell the candidate that I would like them to drill
down and take a look at the recipe for this food item. If they go
ahead and click the Recipe button, they get a gold star! If they
ask me if it's OK to press the Recipe button, that's still very
good. If they fumble around and eventually find the Recipe button,
that's OK. If they turn to me and ask what to do, BZZZZ! I
verbally outline a process that involves two or three steps to update
a database record, and then have them try it. If they remember everything,
gold star! If they miss a detail or two, that's understandable.
If they weren't paying attention, BZZZZ! Better to have it happen
with you than with your customers. When
you start using a structured process to measure each candidate's
learning curve, prepare for some surprises. You will see people
who have little background for the job on paper jump right in and
be productive, and you will see smooth, articulate people who seem
to talk a good game of support fumble haltingly for the mouse most
of the time. But above all, you will very quickly develop a good
personal 1-to-10 ranking scale for how well people can think on
their feet. Role-play
your worst-case situations. If you line up 100 support candidates
and ask them how they feel about customers, you will get exactly
the same answers from at least 99 of them. (And for the rare person
who admits to not liking customers at that point, BZZZZ!) You must
drill down a little deeper to see what level of customer focus a
candidate really has. Here are a couple of examples of what I ask
people: You
have just received a phone call from someone who is very upset about
the way that I had treated her on a previous support call. How do
you handle them? (Bad: They defend me to the customer. Good: They
empathize with the customer and focus on their problem.) A
major account has contracted with us for second-tier support, and
we only take calls from their support coordinator. You get a frantic
call from one of their end-users, who feels he is not being helped
by this person and is facing a major deadline. What do you do? (Bad:
They explain why they cannot help the customer. Good: They bend
the rules, or ask a manager for permission to do so. Excellent:
They also ask a manager to follow up with the client's support coordinator.) Whatever
specific questions you ask, make sure that they balance at least
two different right
answers (pleasing the customer versus working efficiently, for example),
so that you can get a sense for what the candidate values most.
Ask
about war stories: As one of my last questions, I always ask people
to share their war stories of past customer experiences with me.
It's a good social icebreaker, but it can also provide good insight
into how the candidate really views your customers. There
is no need to look for sainthood in the answers you get. Customer
support is a profession that has more than its share of challenges,
and it is perfectly OK for the candidate to share situations where
they were frustrated by a customer. At the same time, you should
look for the feelings behind the stories. People who describe how
they reacted professionally and handled a difficult situation score
points with me, while people who complain about how dense their
customers are lose points. Each
of these secrets works together with the normal hiring practices
you should follow with any employment candidate, such as looking
for good interpersonal and communications skills, checking references,
and working as a team with your company's human resources department.
For candidates who look good on paper, they can help you narrow
down traits that make someone a potential support star. And in today's
tight labor market, they help you look at potential rather than
pedigree, and expand the pool of applicants who can help you build
a great support team. Few
people are fortunate enough to hit a home run every time they step
up to the plate and make a hiring decision. Circumstances change,
expectations vary, and people are, well, people. But secrets like
the ones above will help you put a great deal more science
into your hunches about someone's future success in the technical
support profession. Put them to work, and you too may start finding
a few diamonds in your own coal mine. About the Author:
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