How to Recruit Great Customer Support Agents

Finding great customer support agents is a constant challenge for customer service teams. Customer service is a high-stress job, which means agents can’t coast. They’re constantly under the microscope, forced to meet specific KPIs and stringent metrics.

If that’s not enough, other challenges in recruiting customer support agents include:

• How to identify critical thinkers who can adapt quickly to changing needs and handle stress effectively.
• How to ensure candidates aren’t using AI on written tests during the interview process 
• How to ensure language and cultural gaps don’t presenting significant hurdles when hiring offshore

At Peak Support, we’ve experienced and overcome all of these challenges. With more than 1800 team members across the world, we’ve learned plenty of lessons about recruiting the best customer service agents. We have the lowest attrition rates in the industry and the highest Glassdoor rating in the BPO industry. And we’ve done it all while doubling the size of our team for several years running.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• Marketing: How to attract great applicants to your company
• Strategy: Where to hire, remote vs. in-person, contractor vs. employee
• Screening: How to screen initial applications
• Interviewing: Structuring your interview process, incorporating role plays, and incorporating third-party tests and tools

Implement the strategies below and you’ll quickly build a full pipeline of talented candidates for your next customer support roles.

Marketing: How to attract great customer support applicants

Hiring great customer service agents starts with getting them to apply for your open roles. You need to “sell” your company to candidates — many of whom may already have jobs — so it’s critical to market yourself well.

Here are a few common strategies. Many of these have been key for us as we’ve doubled our company size for each of the past several years:

• Invest in your online profiles on Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, and Facebook. These sites are billboards for your companies, and are often the first place candidates will go to research you. Put your best foot forward and highlight what makes you unique. Facebook is often overlooked, but we’ve found that overseas candidates often pay a lot of attention to your Facebook page.
• Share job openings on social media platforms. You need to get the word out about open roles, and social media is the best place to do it — especially if you have engaged employees who will help amplify your posts’ reach.
• Create employee engagement opportunities that encourage employees to post on social media. For example, we have our anniversary cake decorating contest each year, where contestants post their cakes on social and are judged in part on how much engagement they receive. This highlights your culture and builds a positive employee brand.
• Ask existing employees to write good reviews. Nothing says more to potential candidates than detailed reviews from happy employees. If you receive any negative reviews, respond promptly and thoughtfully.
• Check out certifications. If you believe you have a great culture, check out Great Places to Work certification or Best Workplaces. Our Great Place to Work certification has been a huge part of our growth.

Incentivize employee referrals. Referral programs can be cost-effective because your current employees quickly refer people they already know. Companies typically offer a referral bonus that gets paid out if the person stays in the role for 90 days or more.

Strategy: 3 Key Strategic Questions for Recruiting Great Customer Service Agents

1. Where to hire: onshore, offshore, or nearshore?

There are three places you can hire for your customer service team. For purposes of this article, we’ve assumed the majority of our readers are based in the United States, so we’ve defined locations from a U.S. perspective.

Onshore

• What it is: Hiring in the U.S., or in the same country as your business. 
• Why you’d do it: Onshore hiring can be helpful when native language fluency or cultural matches are business critical. It’s also sometimes necessary for compliance reasons. The tradeoff is that onshore hiring is usually the most expensive option.

Nearshore

• What it is: Hiring internationally, but in a nearby country (e.g. a USA-based company hiring in Colombia). 
• Why you’d do it: Nearshore hiring can make management and communication easier, as you won’t have to worry about major time zone differences (and cultural differences are often minimized, too).

Offshore – Asia, Middle East, Africa

• What it is: Hiring internationally, usually in a distant part of the world (like a USA-based company hiring in the Philippines). 
• Why you’d do it: Many common offshore locations have low labor costs but high levels of education, English proficiency, and deep customer service experience. This is also typically the least expensive option.

Offshore – Europe

• What it is: A U.S. company hiring in Europe, typically Eastern Europe
• Why you’d do it: Typically U.S. companies hire in Europe if they need to serve European languages, or if they have to keep data in the EU.

While some companies worry about offshore hiring and potential customer dissatisfaction, data shows that customers primarily care about having their problems resolved quickly and efficiently. Generally, if a customer’s issue is resolved quickly and satisfactorily, they don’t mind where in the world the person helping them is located.

For instance, we analyzed 200 dissatisfaction reports (DSATs) for one of our clients, which had a Philippines-based support team. Only one complaint was about the agent’s location.

At Peak Support, we started by building outsource customer service teams in the Philippines, and we’ve since expanded into the U.S., Colombia, India, and Eastern Europe.

2. Remote vs. In-person?

Unless you have a great reason not to, we strongly recommend hiring remotely for customer service roles.

Hiring in-person for customer support can make it very hard to find talent, particularly in the U.S. In our experience, it’s not necessary for customer support roles, because customer service teams have clear and measurable KPIs that make it easy to understand how each agent is performing.

In-person customer service roles are typically only necessary when you’re dealing with the highest security requirements. It’s also commonly used when your agents are supporting physical technology products that they need to be able to use and interact with in-person. We’ve found ways around this for our clients — like sending products to agents or to a central location for a trainer — but some companies still prefer a physical, co-located call center for these roles.

We’ve been fully remote at Peak Support since Day 1, and we think it’s the ideal option for most companies and industries when they’re hiring for customer support roles.

The biggest reason for that is because it opens up so many more options for your business — in talent, in cost, and in redundancy. Modern businesses need to be agile and adaptable, and a remote customer service team is a great fit for this model.

Some businesses get concerned about security when they’re hiring remotely, but tools like Teramind and Island Browser enable you to set up safe and secure remote working environments anywhere in the world. 

3. Contractors vs. Employees?

Hiring contractors sometimes works well for small teams. We don’t recommend it for teams over 5 or 10 agents — or teams that expect to be larger than that any time soon. For larger teams, it generates operational complexities that are challenging to manage.

But for small teams, hiring contractors is cheaper and easier than hiring employees, especially in markets with complex labor laws.

The U.S. has an “at-will” employment market, which means companies can terminate employees at any time, for almost any reason. Other countries typically have stricter regulations and severance requirements. Hiring contractors — through Upwork, for example — allows you to bypass those laws.

But it also comes with significant risks. Security is a big one. Contractors may not be required to complete background checks. And if a contractor in a different country commits fraud, you have no legal recourse.

A contractor can also sue you if they think they’ve been mislabeled as a contractor and they should have been full-time employees, with all the associated benefits. Most customer service roles fit the IRS’s definition of employee.

One option is to hire through an Employer of Record (EOR) or Professional Employer Organization (PEO). The person you hire will be a legal employee of the EOR or PEO. Peak Support does this for some clients, and companies like Deel do as well.

Screening: 4 Steps for Identifying Your Shortlist of Candidates to Interview

1. Define the critical skills customer service agents need

A key to hiring well is identifying the skills that your agents will need. While this varies depending on the role, we’ve found that great customer support agents should demonstrate:

• Strong communication skills like being able to clearly convey information, instructions, and solutions. Customer service agents should be proficient in both written and verbal communication – verbal skills are essential if you provide phone support. The best customer service agents are flexible and can quickly adapt their communication style based on the support channel, the issue, and the customer’s emotional state. 
• Problem-solving. Customer service agents spend a lot of time playing detective, so they need to be great at asking questions and resolving issues quickly.
• Empathy and patience. Empathy is a universal customer service skill. Customers don’t reach out to your support team when everything is going right. By default, contacting customer service means something is broken, missing, or confusing. Customer support agents need to be able to listen attentively, validate customer concerns, and calmly guide them to a solution.
• Technical proficiency. The level of technical proficiency required is dependent upon your product. If you’re hiring for a frontline ecommerce support role, your agents probably don’t need deep technical expertise (although generative AI may be changing that). However, if you’re hiring for SaaS customer support or for a more senior role, you’ll want to make sure candidates can navigate relevant tools, understand common technical issues, and troubleshoot bugs effectively.
• Adaptability. No two days in customer support are the same, especially when you’re a fast-growing company. Being comfortable with constant change will make a massive difference in how long an agent remains engaged and happy in their roles.  

2. Identify the requirements (e.g. experience, degree)

The next step is to identify any hard-and-fast requirements that are deal-breakers for the role. For example, do you need candidates with a certain number of years of experience, or a certain type of educational background?

Generally, we recommend limiting the requirements for most customer service roles.

Don’t require a college degree. Plenty of great customer service agents don’t have one.

Don’t require industry experience. There are a few exceptions to this. For example, we know of companies that make musical instruments who hire musicians for their customer support teams; companies in the home-building industry who hire carpenters; and so on. The insurance and healthcare industries also often require industry experience. But for most support teams, you can look for skills and potential.

Don’t get dazzled by experience at big brands. If a candidate has 8 years of experience at Verizon or JetBlue, they’re certainly worth talking to. But agents who succeed at those companies won’t necessarily do well in a startup environment where adaptability, quick learning, and proactive problem-solving are essential. Consider your own particular needs.

Do require experience – but be flexible about what that looks like. For some complex support jobs, you’ll want to hire agents with 3+ or even 5+ years of experience. But for Tier 1 or email/chat support roles, you can often find great agents with limited experience or right out of college. Candidates with solid retail or hospitality experience can also do a great job on customer service teams.

Do look for commitment and tenure in previous roles. Candidates that are constantly hopping from job to job should set off a warning light. Look for consistency in previous roles — if a candidate spent at least a few years at the same company, they’re less likely to exit your company shortly after you’ve ramped them up. Even a consistent summer job is a great sign. 

3. Develop an evaluation rubric

Once you’ve identified the skills and experience required for the job, you can create an evaluation rubric, so you can ensure you’re reviewing resumes objectively. For each criteria, you can use a scale of 1 to 5 or simply a Yes/No metric.

It’s easy to apply for jobs on platforms like Indeed, so you may get 100 applications or more for each open role. That means you need to go through resumes quickly to see which candidates fit your criteria. 

4. Incorporate Must-Pass Tests & Checkpoints

To save your interviewers’ time, you may want to add an additional layer of screening before the interview. This could include:

• Language assessments (we use Employment Technologies’ to evaluate all of our candidates’ language skills)
• Un-gameable tests. Companies like Employment Labs, Alva Labs, TestGorilla, and Talogy offer a variety of screening tests that candidates can’t use AI to pass.
• Tech spec tests. If agents are working from home, you should test their upload and download speeds, as well as the security of their home Internet connection.
• A short intro video. Have the candidate record a short intro video, so you can get a sense of their language and communication skills.

All of these strategies help you narrow down your shortlist. In addition, they screen out applicants who pressed “Apply” but never really wanted to work for your company. Some of these candidates will never even show up for the first interview.

Interviewing: Tips for Conducting Effective Customer Service Interviews

When you’re constantly hiring customer support agents, having a structured and reusable process saves a lot of time and energy. Here’s what we’ve found works well:

• Start with an initial screening. A short (15-20 minute) callwith a member of the recruiting team to gauge the candidate’s experience and communication skills. It’s also a great chance to answer questions and ensure the candidate understands the role.
• Conduct multiple interviews. At a minimum, we recommend two interviews with two different people. Try getting a team lead or manager involved, along with a peer or related role (such as a member of your QA or training team). 
• Include role plays. More on this in the next section. For now, know that role plays are a key tool for assessing a candidate’s thought process and approach to problem-solving.

Questions to ask in customer service interviews

There are thousands of questions you can ask in interviews, many of which could bring valuable answers. But the questions below are the key questions we’ve found most helpful in expanding our team to 1800+ employees, nearly all of whom work in some type of customer service function.

1. Tell me about yourself. This opening question helps you get to know the candidate, but what you’re really looking for is whether they can be concise and clear in their answer. 
2. What does “good” customer service mean to you? Ask for a specific example to understand more about how a candidate views supporting customers. 
3. Can you tell me about a challenge you’ve overcome? This question highlights an applicant’s resilience, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence. 
4. Tell me about a time when you had to solve a problem for a customer. Follow up by asking how they approached it and what they’d do differently.
5. Give me an example of a time when you helped an irate or unreasonable customer. Seek to understand how the candidate remained cool and in control of the situation.
6. Can you tell me about a time when you had to say “no” to a customer’s request? Look to understand how the candidate navigated a tough conversation with a customer. 
7. Have you ever helped a customer through a situation for which there wasn’t a clear policy? How did you handle it? This question tests their ability to handle ambiguity and solve problems.
8. What’s an example of a time when you worked successfully as part of a team? This question highlights when and how a candidate seeks out help and how they build good working relationships.

Use role plays in your interview process

Role-playing is an effective method for determining the skill level of potential customer support candidates. Many of the screening companies mentioned above (Employment Labs, Alva Labs, TestGorilla, and Talogy) offer role plays, but you can also develop one yourself.

In our recent webinar with Tony Won, founder of Player Support and long-time customer support leader, Tony stresses that roleplaying should be about the journey rather than getting to the end of a solvable scenario.

Put another way, it’s not about a candidate getting to the ‘correct’ answer as quickly as possible. It’s about the process they use to get there. It’s about the experience.

He recommends creating scenarios that can’t be gamed, meaning you can continue down the path of the scenario for as long as necessary without a conclusion taking place.

To create your roleplaying scenario, Tony recommends you:

• Create a scenario about 15-20 minutes in length
• Consider making the scenario as simple as a login issue
• Tell the interviewee up front that the scenarios are based on reality, but you won’t get to the end
• Prompt the interviewee with questions like “Why did you decide that?” or “What made you think of that question?” to dig into their problem-solving skills

As an interviewer, you’ll want to ask yourself these questions when evaluating the candidate during the role-play:

• Does the candidate understand the possible complexities?
• Do they ask the right kinds of questions?
• Are they thinking about the customer’s experience and perspective?
• Do they have the appropriate level of technical affinity?

Role plays move the process from theoretical to real-life, helping you better understand a candidate’s fit.

Great customer support agents make all the difference

When things go wrong, your customers reach out to your customer support team.You don’t want to disappoint them when they’re already frustrated, unhappy, or upset.

Recruiting for customer support roles can be a difficult process, but over the years we’ve employed the above strategies to successfully double our headcount each year and to create dozens of happy clients.

If you need to scale up your customer support team, you don’t have to start from scratch. We know exactly what it takes to deliver a great customer experience with every support interaction, across industries like ecommerce, gaming, SaaS, and consumer apps.

We’d love to help you scale your customer service smoothly and effectively. Contact us today to learn more about what that could look like!