I hate with a fiery passion the so-called “Competency based interview”, or as I think of it, the blagger’s charter.
Really the only thing that asking people to name a series of specific incidents where x occurred encourages is charismatic lying. I dealt with my jobs one thing at a time, quietly and competently all coalescing together in my memory, with nothing sticking out.
Employers don’t want to hear the truth though. They want an incident that magically matches their scenario. Instead of “plenty of times I would…” they want specifics. I can’t get a job with just competence and honesty so unfortunately I need the good people of the SMDB to help me be a little shady.
I need some stories showing good customer service in a call centre that I can adapt to fit me. Stories shown in online help guides are ridiculous as they are all way too industry specific and they show the person being a hero, when I just need stories to say general competence, I don’t want to over egg the pudding.
So please, just give some, (real or not), generic good service stories someone working in a call centre that acts as an umbrella order line for many clients might have. The best ones would be generic and easily adaptable and not too good.
Chances are I would have done it or better as I was very diligent and competent but can’t recall specifics and I’m not good at coming up with lies.
I can’t help you with specifics but try to remember one which involved you making a suggestion as to how to improve the process which was implemented and worked.
This is a good example of a stupid question. It never happened. Not to me, any of my colleagues or 99% of other applicants. However the guy who gives the honest answer of “well, that never happened” is out on his ear even though that should be considered the best possible answer.
Edit: just to clarify, I’m not calling Quartz stupid or suggesting he’s being stupid by bringing it up. Also if anybody has a tale that I could tell for that question, that would be good.
Inherently most such stories will be industry specific as great customer service depends on using what resources you have (or can muster) to tackle a problem. The resources at hand are highly specific to the industry.
It may be where you did your normal job in a competent manner but the outcome was particularly noteworthy. I work in a 9-1-1 emergency call center and dispatched an ambulance on a call. Nothing extraordinary and I do that every day without knowing who the patient is or what they do in life. But that one call that one day was my tiny piece of a great chain that saved the life of a man who does some pretty amazing charitable work. Someone found him and started first aid. Someone called 9-1-1. My colleague answered that call. I dispatched. The paramedics stabilized him and transported him. All before a doctor ever laid eyes on him. And by doing my part that man survived and he can keep doing things that make a much bigger knock-on impact.
More generically, an order taking call center employee might work with a customer who is placing a complicated order that will somehow be particularly meaningful to them. Could be an order that requires an unusual amount of setting up differing shipping addresses, that requires a foreign address which the computer system cannot recognize, or perhaps where you provide input that in some way drives added sales. There are many options.