How to Staff Your Call Center in Less Than 2 Weeks

In 2015 3.4 million U.S. customer service agents processed more than 200 billion minutes of support calls. With that in mind, consider how long it takes to staff a call center with an average of 79 positions and sometimes more than 250 employees. If you can’t staff it quickly, agents are spending less time with customers who are waiting longer for support. You’re losing productivity and creating a worse customer experience.

Why Customer Experience Matters

Many firms predict that by 2020 customer experience will be the biggest differentiator in brands, with a greater brand impact than pricing or product quality. It’s not hyperbole to say that some companies sink or swim based on their ability to keep customers happy. Your customers don’t call until they need help or have a problem, but their experience calling support can leave a lasting impact on their satisfaction and your brand.

Your Hiring Process isn’t Fast Enough

You need to screen hundreds of applications to find candidates with the skills to provide a great experience and customer service, and hire these candidates before the competition. If you’re taking more than twenty days to fill these positions, you’re losing out on great candidates. Video interviewing can provide high quality candidates at the speed you need to keep customers happy.

How To Staff Your Call Center in 2 Weeks

Use OnDemand video interviews to reduce your hiring process by simultaneously screening, interviewing and assessing candidates.  

Screen and Review Candidates at Scale

Video interviewing allows recruiters and hiring managers to move through a large volume of candidates quickly and accurately. Recruiters no longer have to schedule phone screenings and set up interviews. Hundreds of applicants can submit short, structured OnDemand interviews for next-day review by a recruiter.

Hiring teams can also use one or two questions as a knock-out screening questions to filter candidates who don’t have certain skills or knowledge. Recruiters can review interviews at increased speed, and skip to these key questions first.

Hire the Best Before the Competition

Call centers face the challenge of not only filling high volume roles but also finding candidates that will succeed in those roles. Your recruiters need to see how they perform under stress, their ability to communicate, how quickly they can pick up and apply information.

Instead of evaluating an applicant’s skills off of a paper resume, video interviewing allows hiring managers to see how they present themselves in real time. Behavioral questions allow candidates to simulate how they would communicate with a customer, so hiring managers can gauge their problem solving and and communication skills.

Real Results

Here are actual metrics from HireVue customers using OnDemand interviews:

• reduced screening time by 90%
• saved $28,000 per employee in turnover costs
• hired 1880 call center operators in four months, or 105 high quality hires per week
• improved candidate quality by 100%
• achieved a 50% interview-to-hire ratio
• 31% increase in retention
• realize a 131% ROI

Call centers are a core component of your brand. Being able to staff them quickly with the best candidates not only helps keep turnover costs down, it keeps customers happy with a great support experience. When hiring managers are able to fill their call centers in less than two weeks, they’re no longer leaving customers on hold.