Call Center Assessment to hire skilled call center professionals

Conventional methods of recruitment require a significant amount of time, effort, money, and resources to find the top candidates who possess all the qualities required to thrive in a call center environment. Mercer | Mettl’s innovative tool, SpeechX automatically grades candidates based on the required competencies, thereby helping hiring managers shortlist the top talents for the available positions.  

SpeechX has been developed to solve the hiring challenges faced by the call center industry. This assessment tool assesses candidates on their ability to listen actively and respond clearly. As a result, leading call centers can leverage Mercer | Mettl's SpeechX to effortlessly screen job candidates and hire the most competent customer service agents and sales representatives. In addition, the tool focuses on finding capable candidates who possess personality traits integral to long-term success in their roles.

Why is the Call Center Assessment important?

Communication plays a fundamental role in businesses. Marketing researchers have shifted their focus from transaction-centric models to customer-relationship models. The nature of communication casts a particular impression on customers regarding the service they receive, which directly impacts consumers' behaviour as to whether they will buy a specific product or, more importantly, become loyal to certain brands. Effective communication is crucial to delivering excellent customer service. That is why the cornerstone of a flourishing call center is a top-level customer service team that effectively meets the client's needs and prompts them to become evangelists for their company.

What is Speech X?

SpeechX is an AI-powered English-speaking proficiency assessment tool that solves the call center/BPO industry's major pain points, such as reducing turnaround time in hiring and eliminating human bias while selecting candidates. This tool-based assessment evaluates the candidates on fluency, pronunciation, grammar, and listening comprehension. The test is also AI-backed and auto-grades job applicants by providing an overall score based on the CEFR level that ranges from A1 (beginner) to C2 (proficient), helping the hiring managers know the candidate's skill level.  

It is suitable to assess candidates for positions across all industries that entail frequent interactions with customers over inbound calls and direct interactions. Whether for outbound calls, inbound calls, or both, hiring becomes seamless with Mercer | Mettl’s SpeechX tool enabling employers to craft a customized test specific to their needs. Whether it is about building a bigger team for the onsite call centers or switching to remote working processes, Mercer | Mettl's SpeechX helps shorten time-to-hire, decrease turnover and attrition, and identify high-performing employees.

Sample questions

• Assessment questions for personality  

1. What qualities do you have that make you a top call center representative?  
2. What do you think is the most crucial quality when helping customers?  
3. Do you prefer little, or more hands-on training before taking calls with customers? 
4. Being a call center agent often entails speaking to upset customers—and that can sometimes feel overwhelming. How do you continue to keep yourself, or others, motivated at work?

• Assessment questions for operations  

1. What are the first set of questions you ask a shopper who calls in?   
2. What do you respond to a shopper if you do not know the answers to their question?  
3. What do you do if a customer accidentally cuts the call or is disconnected?  
4. How do you determine whether to route a customer to another department or handle them yourself?

• Assessment questions for handling aggressive clients  

1. What would you do if you had a shopper call in upset and demand to speak to the manager? 
2. How would you manage when a shopper calls in, upset that their item is taking longer than expected to arrive?   
3. Have you encountered a situation where a customer was unhappy with the item they received? How did you resolve the situation to improve customer satisfaction?   
4. Have you ever had a shopper call in because a purchase did not arrive or there was a shipping issue? What was the issue? How did you resolve this?