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Customer Service Focus
Recruiting customer service professionals
Proper planning brings out the best candidates
By Jim Cuprisin, CIC, CRM, ARP
Recruiting quality customer service representatives (CSRs) or account managers is always a challenge. However, it can be a little easier if you have a plan and are always on the lookout for quality personnel. Here are some pointers. (In the rest of this article, the term “CSRs” will stand for account managers, customer service representatives, and other agency service personnel.)
How to find prospective CSRs
Agency owners and managers need to consider a number of sources for prospective CSRs. Referrals are always a good source and often lead to quality employees with longer-than-average retention rates. Let your employees know, on a regular basis, that you are open to interviewing good people for current or future job openings. You can make incentives or rewards available to employees whose referrals are hired and who stay with the agency for a specified period of time, like six months or a year.
Hiring interns from high schools, technical schools, and junior colleges gives you the opportunity to teach them about the industry and your agency. In turn, you can observe your interns’ work habits, communication skills, motivation, knowledge, and other traits to see which interns might be a good fit for permanent positions in your agency.
State insurance associations and other organizations maintain Web sites and other listings of agency job openings and also may post résumés from job seekers. Community, high school, and college job fairs are another way to find good candidates and let people know about job opportunities in your agency and the insurance industry.
Web sites like monster.com have millions of résumés online for potential employers to review, and such sites can be an excellent source of candidates for agency positions, particularly in larger cities. In smaller or rural communities, agencies may get better results by running classified ads in the local paper or consulting an employment agency.
All of the methods described above can yield excellent results, but it’s always a good idea to maintain a 24/7 attitude toward recruiting CSRs, producers, and other agency personnel. A chance encounter with a quality candidate in a social or business setting can lead to a career discussion, job interview, and possible hire.
Phone interview
Some agency managers like to conduct a phone interview with a CSR job applicant to see how well that person communicates via phone, as this type of communication is a key skill for CSRs. You can hear how the person sounds on the phone and weed out undesirable candidates. Candidates who sound enthusiastic and intelligent can be scheduled for a future face-to-face interview.
Personal interview
The personal, face-to-face interview is typically the most important part of the CSR hiring process. During the interview you can assess the candidate’s skill, experience, attitudes, and other important considerations. The interview can be conducted by the agency owner, human resource manager, department manager, and/or other CSRs. Having two or three employees conduct one interview may be appropriate for some agencies, whereas a smaller agency may have only one person conduct the interview. The interview questions should be determined in advance and used for all job candidates in order to offer every candidate a fair opportunity.
During the interview you’ll want to inform the candidate about the responsibilities of the job, the training methodology, the compensation structure, professional development opportunities, and any other relevant matters. The best interviewers, however, ask questions and let the candidate do the majority of the talking. Good job interviewers should be good listeners and allow the job applicants to tell their story.
Testing
Pre-employment testing can be a useful tool to evaluate CSR candidates. Testing can be done for aptitude or personality. Omnia and Caliper are two testing services used by many agencies. Tests are typically used toward the end of the interview process to help determine whether a candidate is indeed a good fit for the CSR position and agency culture. Because testing involves cost and time constraints, not all agencies will use this option, but it is worth considering. The costs of a bad hire are always high compared to the price of a test.
References
Should references be required and checked? Job candidates list only references that are going to say something positive about them, so this strategy really may not add much to the process.
Evaluating candidates
After interviewing all CSR candidates, your next step is to evaluate each candidate by consistently applying the criteria you consider meaningful. An evaluation checklist or form can assist you in the decision-making process. You can assign a numerical value to each factor and weight the different factors to calculate a score for each candidate. This score, combined with your experience and subjective impressions of the candidate, can help you select the best candidate. From there you’ll proceed to make a job offer and, if it’s accepted, go on to discuss issues like the new employee’s start date and orientation process.
Training
Once hired, even the best people need training if they are to succeed in your agency. Both novices and experienced CSRs may be assigned a mentor to guide them in the early going. Formal classes can expand the new employee’s coverage knowledge and enhance communications skills. It’s important to make sure that your training programs give your new CSRs the best opportunity to succeed.
Fine tune your plan
Agency owners and managers should continually be on the lookout for good CSRs and other employees. When you recruit candidates before you have a job opening, you’ll avoid the hassle of scrambling at the last minute to fill an unexpected vacancy. Having a plan in place for consistent, successful recruitment, interviewing, and selection gives you a significant advantage. Once your plan is in place, you can fine tune it so you’ll always be able to bring top talent into your agency.
The author
Jim Cuprisin, CIC, CRM, ARP, is research director for The National Alliance Research Academy, which has published the CSR Profile, among other studies. He is also the editor of Resources magazine. He has more than 20 years of experience in insurance education and research, and six years of experience in company underwriting. For more information on the CSR Profile or the CISR program, call (800) 633-2165 or go to www.TheNationalAlliance.com.
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