- Can you tell us about a time where you received constructive criticism?
It’s always interesting to hear how people handle constructive criticism. This is a tough one to analyze, but you can usually tell in their story if the criticism was well received. If the candidate says something like, “I appreciated the feedback”, then it’s likely they weren’t defensive when the advice was received.
- Can you tell me are you able to work with multiple phone lines?
Your answer: Yes, this has been part of my training, and my previous job entailed handling several lines. I have good multi-tasking skills and my previous employer can vouch for this.
- Please explain how would you handle a high pressure environment?
Your answer: I am highly organized, and I prioritize my workload so that everything gets done on time and with high quality. I also leave room for urgent tasks that might be assigned to me so that my schedule is basically unaffected by emergencies.
- Explain me what about the job description enticed you to apply?
Now that you know a bit about them and their background, it’s good to get a sense of why they’re interested in this particular role. Look out for specific keywords in their answer. Assuming this is a role for a contact center agent, responses like “customer facing” or “problem solving” might be great keywords for you. It also shows you how well they understand the role.
- Tell us can you multi-task? typing while talking, for example?
You have to be able to do this, so say that you can. If you have never done this you must start practising. You can practice by typing replies while having a conversation with family or friends.
- Explain why are you leaving your current role as Manager Call Center?
If the candidate is currently employed, it’s important to understand why they are moving on. Answers like, “I’d like to learn more” or “it’s time to spread my wings”, are great, but not if they’ve only been at the job for a few months. Watch how often the candidate jumps from job to job, since this can be a bad sign. Also, if they quickly go into shaming the company, this shows a lack of loyalty and professionalism.
- Tell me do you have any experience in a call centre?
Give full details of any call centre jobs that you have previously done, even if only very short temporary work. If you have never done any call centre work say so and then go on to say why you would like to work in a call centre. By volunteering the information from the start you will come across as enthusiastic.
- Tell us how have you used data to improve the level of customer service?
How do you employ this data to achieve your customer service goals?
“I measured the number of repetitive support emails that were coming in and identified that a number of questions were consistently asked. I researched the benefit of setting up a comprehensive knowledge base online to address these questions. It was cost effective to do this and has proved an efficient way of reducing these repetitive emails sent by customers.”
- Can you tell me how do you measure the success of your incentives?
An ideal answer to this question will demonstrate that you are capable of monitoring a situation as it evolves.
Whilst working in a call centre as a supervisor, I introduced ‘Sugar Fridays’ – giving my team sweets and treats to get them through the Friday slog.
Prior to introducing the incentive, I compiled a backlog of sales figures from previous Fridays. I then introduced the incentive on a trial period, continued collecting data and cross-compared the results. There was an obvious peak in sales figures and so the incentive became permanent.
- Tell us how would you deal with an irate customer on the phone?
To deal with an irate customer you must remain calm and be polite. Listen to the customer’s complaint, take notes, and then reassure the customer that the company will make every attempt to resolve the problem.
Apologise to them directly, using phrases such as: “I am really sorry” to display sincerity. Don’t apologise on behalf of the company by saying things like: “the company is sorry” as it takes away from the authenticity of your apology.
- Explain me what are your strengths and weaknesses as Manager Call Center?
Your answer should be relevant to telemarketing, so you could say: I have the ability to talk effectively and persuade people. I am a good listener, and that helps me identify customer needs so I can sell more effectively. My one weakness is that I sometimes get too involved with customers, but I have counseled with my previous manager on this and I believe I no longer have that problem.
- Please explain about the toughest decision you had to make in the last 6 months?
Talk about a challenging question! I can’t even think about a tough decision I’ve had to make in that timeframe. (Don’t worry, we’re leading into an easy question next.) There’s no right answer here, just let the candidate tell their story, and hopefully the challenge had some merit.
- Explain how would your customer service team describe you as a manager?
Focus on the strengths and skills required to successfully manage a customer service team including clear communication, organizational and planning skills, people development and empowerment, motivational skills and problem-solving skills.
Support your answer with examples of actual feedback you have received from team members.
- Explain me how would you tell a customer something that they will not like?
In these cases you must be polite and professional. You can open by saying that you are sorry to have to inform them that the information you have for them is not good. Speak calmly and then provide the customer with an opportunity to reply; take notes and raise any serious concerns with a team leader before progressing.
- Can you tell us what have you done to promote great customer service?
Firstly, know what you think great customer service looks like. Look for situations and examples when you had an idea, a client, or customer call, where you personally went that extra mile.
Did you change a process or procedure? Or perhaps a staff member you mentored, coached or advised delivered a great customer service win or result for your team, brand or business.
- Explain what have you done to improve work processes in the customer service division?
In your answer describe receiving feedback from customers to identify areas for improvement, looking at every touch-point in the customer life-cycle and implementing actions to improve the process.
“I identified that customer satisfaction with our email support was not what it should be. The rule of thumb has been providing a response within 24 hours. However with the pace of everything increasing online I understood that we needed to achieve more impressive response times. I instituted a response time of 4 to 8 hours as the standard. This has set us apart from our competitors and improved customer satisfaction”
- Tell us have you ever improved a process or solved an operational issue? How did you do it? What impact did it have?
Demonstrates problem-solving skills.
- Tell us what do you like to do for fun?
If they say things like, “hanging out with friends and watching movies”, they probably aren’t the go-getter type you’re looking for. Great talent has passion outside of the office: Perhaps they like to cycle, play guitar in a band, or they have a side gig (what better way to show a hard work ethic!) In any event, while ‘hanging out with friends’ is a good social trait, you should certainly look for the candidate that offers more to this answer.
- Please explain have you ever had conflict with your team leader or manager?
This can be your answer: No, my work ethic is strong, so there’s been no reason for conflict. However, at times I have had disagreements on how to resolve a particular problem for a customer, but I have always been able to talk it out and find a solution that my team leader has supported.
- Explain me how do you make sure you meet your targets?
Say that you stay focused on the job and stay organised to ensure that you all tasks are completed within good time. If for any reason a target may not be attainable, you will raise this with your team leader to see if there are available resources elsewhere.
A team leader will always appreciate being alerted to the risk of a target being missed because they have their own targets to meet.
- Tell us how would you handle an angry call from a customer?
First, you need to allow them to vent their anger. If they are abusive, tell them you’re willing to listen, but only if they stop using profanities. Next, hear what they have to say and note down key points. Third, re-state the main points so both of you are clear about the situation. Fourth, find a solution that fits within your company’s policies and can redress the customer’s problem. Fifth, confirm that the problem has been solved and that the customer is satisfied with the solution. You may not be able to do all of this in one phone call, but this is the essential process. The important part is to keep your cool at all times, and genuinely try to find a solution that will make the customer happy.
- Tell me what are your goals as a telemarketer?
Your answer: My goal is to have a very short learning curve on this particular product portfolio. By doing this, I can aim to be among the top performers in the next 3-6 months. After showing consistent results for another 6 to 12 months, I will aim to become a team leader in the same company because I believe that growing with the same company will give me a strong foundation for my career growth.
- Can you tell us how often do you challenge the way your current company does things or challenge something that you feel needs to change?
This is a bit of a tricky question to answer, as how you answer can determine whether your interviewer thinks you are too strong-minded or, worse, too sheep-like in your approach to work. An ideal answer will show a degree of balance.
Throughout my term of employment, I keep a constant note of any areas that I feel can be improved. But I only present these concerns to my boss when I have developed in-depth and realistic solutions.
The frequency of these meetings is determined by how stable the company is. If the company implements several changes throughout the course of the year, I am more inclined to provide regular feedback to my boss.
- Tell us a time when you successfully navigated a disagreement with a coworker?
Shows ability to work with others.
- Please explain how have you motivated your team to achieve demanding performance standards?
Provide examples of the types of motivation you have used and their effectiveness. Examples include cash incentives, training programs, career development, time off, recognition. Focus on identifying and meeting individual motivations with specific rewards tied to the employee’s interests and needs.
Other factors to discuss in your interview answer include providing the right resources for the team to do their job including skills, knowledge, support and equipment. A team that is not armed with the right resources will find it difficult to do their job and stay motivated.
Time spent individually with each team member listening to them and developing them is another strong motivational tool. Taking the time to encourage them in their work and providing constructive, factual and sincere feedback are motivating factors.
- Explain about the cost efficiencies you introduced in your last job?
Discuss how you identified the opportunity for cost saving and how you implemented appropriate measures to improve operational efficiency. Examples include:
☛ cross training employees to handle different functions
☛ scheduling employees according to call and query volumes
☛ introducing new technologies and applications
☛ providing information via an interactive website or other digital channel
- Explain me how do you handle clients with unreasonable demands? Provide examples?
Shows adaptability and stress handling skills.
- Explain me how have you utilised customer complaint feedback to improve how your team are selling?
An ideal answer to this question will demonstrate that you are capable of assessing a situation and implementing improvements.
I started to notice that a lot of customers were complaining about feeling patronized by my agents. In response to this, I listened to the calls these complaints stemmed from and realized that words such as ‘wonderful’ were being over used.
I then had a meeting with the worst offenders in my team and suggested changes that they could make to correct this behavior. After this meeting, customer complaints reduced and sales increased.
- Explain me do you enjoy communicating with people?
The only answer to this is that you love talking to people and that you are also a good listener. Say that your ideal job involves talking with people to help resolve problems and to provide support and information.
Give an example of how you have used your communication skills beneficially in a previous position
Try to be inventive and honest here. If you have not done any call centre work you could talk about experience in meetings, discussing strategies with colleagues. If you have done any voluntary work, especially if it involved speaking with people on a regular basis, this is a good time to mention it.
- Tell us how would you measure the success of you and your team over a 3-, 6- and 12-month period?
This question requires you to understand the benefits of setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound) objectives and developing action plans.
In line with the over-arching goals of the company, I would set personal goals for myself and my team which I would subsequently break down into weekly SMART objectives. I would monitor these closely through general in-office communication and a series of team meetings, as well as through scheduling individual appraisal meetings at 3-, 6- and 12-month intervals.
- Explain me how would you deal with a customer that is having a well-known issue with the product or service that you provide?
Customer service professions must deal with different customers with different personalities that are all having the similar issues on a regular basis. It can be difficult to hear the same complaints over and over, but it’s a reality of the job.
- Basic Manager Call Center Job Interview Questions:
☛ How many people have you managed in the past?
☛ Describe your relevant call center experience.
☛ How would you familiarize yourself with our customers and product during your first week on the job?
☛ What interests you about being a call center manager for our organization?
☛ Describe your familiarity with call center equipment.
☛ What recruiting strategies worked well your previous company? What didn’t work so well?
☛ What do you typically include in new employee training?
☛ What would you do if your team was falling behind on performance standards? How would you fix it?
☛ How do you know how well your team is doing? What metrics do you look at?
☛ How would you get a team to collaborate on a new project in the face of tight deadlines?
☛ How would you resolve a dispute between two colleagues?
☛ Describe a time a difficult customer call was escalated to your attention. How did you handle it?
☛ Describe your approach to disciplining employees.
☛ How do you motivate your team to meet their goals?
- Top 12 Manager Call Center Job Interview Questions:
☛ 1) In this position you will need deliver feedback that is both good and sometimes not so good to people who were your peers. How do you plan to be able to give such feedback?
☛ 2) This position requires flexibility in shifts. How do you plan to maintain a good work-life balance?
☛ 3) What is the difference between a manager and a leader?
☛ 4) What are the key values of a leader, and how will you demonstrate them?
☛ 5) In general how do you make decisions?
☛ 6) What steps would you take to ensure your team members feel valued?
☛ 7) Give an example of a risk you decided to take. Why did you choose to pursue it?
☛ 8) What is an example of a creative solution to an unexpected situation when your leadership skills were needed?
☛ 9) In what ways have you acted as a mentor to a coworker?
☛ 10) How would you keep each member of your team involved and motivated?
☛ 11) What are your past faults as a leader?
☛ 12) What is an example of how you handled a situation where you and a coworker did not agree?
- Tell me how do you identify an agent’s strengths? Weaknesses? How would you use this information?
Demonstrates analytical skills.
- Please explain what metrics do you consider the most important factor in measuring customer satisfaction?
Describe the metrics you use and why. Common metrics include:
☛ first response time
☛ first contact resolution
☛ problem resolution time
☛ resolution rates
☛ escalation rates
☛ customer retention
☛ referrals
☛ call volumes
- Can you explain me about a customer service policy that you have developed and implemented?
Talk the interviewer through a policy you developed, structuring your answer around these recognized steps.
☛ Clearly identify the goals for the policy
☛ Ensure correlation between the customer service goals and the company mission and objectives
☛ Identify the specific processes that will result in goal accomplishment
☛ Develop standard operating procedures and guidelines for the processes
☛ Train your staff in the implementation of the new customer service policy
- Can you please explain how creative are you in comparison to your colleagues, i.e. in managing, developing, encouraging and motivating your team?
This question is asked to determine whether or not you are going to bring something to the team.
In an ideal answer you will confirm that you are creative in your job role, and markedly so compared to some of your colleagues. You should then proceed to give examples which demonstrate this.
This question gives you the opportunity to tell the interviewer about how you developed a Monday-morning prize-giving incentive to get your team fired up for the week. Or how you introduced daily staff meetings to keep your team engaged with the goals of the organisation. Or implemented a buddy-up training programme to help your new recruits settle in faster.
- Tell me how have you educated your frontline agents to ensure excellent customer feedback?
As a leader charged with delivering excellent customer feedback, you will know how important it is that customer feedback and insight are monitored, measured and acted upon, whenever appropriate or necessary.
But how about your agents? This question is very much aligned to your engagement, coaching and development skills. You need to think about the culture, communication and interactions you have with your agents.
Discuss how you impart your knowledge and experience to your agents and how you ensure that they can continue to develop the confidence, skills, knowledge and habits that will drive excellent customer feedback with every interaction.
- Explain how do you handle a customer who starts yelling at you as soon as they pick up and find out that you are a telemarketer?
Your answer: Not every customer is in the right mood for a sales call, and I understand that. Irate customers are part of the game, and I can easily calm them down with an apology; however, I will usually attempt to get a callback time so a valuable potential customer doesn’t lose out on the great benefits your products can give them.
- Explain me do you prefer working on one account, or can you comfortably work on several at the same time?
The answer for this question depends on the role. It would be safest to answer that you can comfortably work on several accounts at the same time, but feel that when you can focus on one account you are able to provide a higher quality service.
Give an example of a time where you’ve gone out of your way to provide great customer service or help someone
- Please explain how do you feel about meeting goals and targets?
The best answer is to say that goals and targets provide you with focus and that you enjoy the challenge of being the first in your team to reach the set goals. Also say that targets help to foster healthy competition within a team.
- Can you tell us what do you do if the dialer puts a Do Not Call number through to you by mistake?
Your answer: As soon as I know that this is a DNC number, I will apologize at once to the customer for the error and assure them that their number will be immediately included in our internal DNC list. I will also make a note in the CRM application so even if the system error happens again the next agent won’t be forced to deal with an escalated problem. I will also report the problem to my team leader or manager as soon as I hang up.
- Explain me how did you recognize the level of trust or respect your team held for you and how did you ensure this continued?
Only you will know if your team really trusts and respects you. Respectful employees will usually make you coffee, hold a door open for you, properly carry out tasks assigned to them and rarely undermine your judgement.
To maintain this level of respect, you should make time to recognise your employees’ efforts, occasionally explain how you reached a solution to a problem (this can help with buy-in for larger changes or projects) and do your best to be consistently level-headed and successful in your judgement – as it only takes one slip-up to undermine your credibility.
Have you been asked any other questions that have probed your leadership abilities? If so, we would like to hear them! So, please leave your thoughts and suggestions in an email to Call Centre Helper.
- Explain me how do you ensure that the goals of your team are in line with the overall company goals?
This question helps your interviewer to gauge whether you understand your role in your current job, and how your efforts contribute to the goals of the organisation.
The company I currently work for publishes an annual report of KPIs relating to the goals they hope to achieve that year. I extract the company goals that are relevant to my department and break them down into weekly objectives. I then use these objectives to ensure that my team is constantly contributing to the overall goals of the organisation.
- Can you tell us about a time when you had to handle a difficult customer?
Surely they have a story to tell, presuming they came into this role with some customer service experience. It’s important to see what kind of story they choose to share. Ideally they’ll explain how they were ultimately the hero in an otherwise terrible customer interaction. That they went over and above to make the customer happy, and that their manager was thrilled with the outcome.
- Tell us what did you learn about customer service from your bad interaction?
There’s no shortage of customer-service-gone-wrong in today’s world, and one of the most important things you can learn about a candidate is what they’ve gleaned from these experiences.
When a candidate can step back and think about a customer interaction and gain insight from it, they have the ability to provide positive experiences when they are on the other side of the interaction.
- Explain me an example of how you have managed an under-performing staff member?
What process did you follow to understand the reasons for the poor performance, gain commitment to the need for change and resolve the issues?
Approaches include developing a program of required actions for the team member to follow, providing training, coaching and mentoring, allocating necessary resources.
- Tell us what do you consider the core criteria for a successful customer service department?
Key factors include a good understanding of the needs of the customer and having the right skills, resources and processes in place to meet these needs.
From a customer service management perspective criteria include clear communication of objectives and expectations to staff, consistent performance management, empowering staff to meet customer demands, ensuring staff are sufficiently engaged, listening to feedback from staff and customers and effectively acting on it.
- Explain me are you able to cope well under pressure?
You must be able to work under pressure in a call centre. Explain that you thrive when working under pressure and that you are able to focus on a task well when there is a tight deadline.
- Tell us why do you want to work for us as a customer service advisor?
Working in a call centre is essentially working on the front line of customer services. You have to be passionate about helping people and say that you respect the company’s values and products. You must, of course, research the company well beforehand because they will follow this up with a specific question about their products or values.
- Can you tell us how many calls per hour can you make on an average campaign?
Make sure you do your homework/research before you answer: My average call handle time was about X minutes at my previous job. On a similar campaign I can typically make 60/X calls per hour. On a predictive dialer I can usually make 10 to 20 percent more calls.
- Explain me why did you leave your last position as Manager Call Center?
This is a tricky question because “anything you say can and will be held against you!” Be careful and only answer with a positive tone. You can say that you didn’t find the job challenging enough for your skills, or that the workload was sporadic and you spent, say 40%, of your time on ‘idle’ mode. Never speak ill of your last employer because it shows that you will do exactly the same once you leave this one! Protect the image of your previous employer, and your current one will respect you for it.
- Explain me how would you manage your time and objectives in your role?
This is your opportunity to assure your potential employer that you are capable of working in line with your objectives and getting the job done on time.
In my current role, I break down my objectives into daily targets and outline periods of the day when I am going to focus on achieving them. I find this system works well for me and I expect to carry it into my next job.
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years as Manager Call Center?
Ideally the person you hire is someone who can grow in your organization. If you’re hiring an agent and their goal is to be involved in management in the next 5 years, it shows you that they’re motivated to grow and lead. This is a great way to hold on to talent!
- Tell us what sort of issues you expect to handle as a manager and how you’d do it?
Reveals candidate’s job expectations.
- Explain me what solutions have you employed in response to customer service problems you identified?
“I identified that we were not getting the feedback we needed from customers. To ensure we knew about all the experiences our customers have we had to create an easily accessible way for them to give us feedback.
One way we resolved this was with a phone survey at the end of a service call. By creating a means for customers to provide immediate feedback it was easier to learn what needed improvement.”
- Please explain what is your preferred management style?
Focus on utilizing different management styles to increase effectiveness in different situations and with different employees. Why do certain management styles work in particular scenarios?
“I find that it is most effective to have a variety of management styles and to use them appropriately. I have to adapt according to the team member and the situation. However one aspect of my management style that remains consistent is that I employ a hands-on approach.
I get a better appreciation for what my team does by spending time on the front lines, it builds a strong relationship with them and keeps me informed. I have found a participative approach to management helps build commitment and consensus among employees “