“Interviewing for Service Competency”

August 2010 Newsletter

by Christine Hill

The most common tool used across business to select people for a task or job is the face-to-face interview. The “interview” can be used to hire new people or recruit existing employees to work on a team to solve a problem or implement a solution.  Whatever your purpose, one thing is constant–the perceptions we develop of others is predominately shaped by our face-to-face interactions with them. Thus, the interview questions we ask of others become very important, and those questions could determine how effectively we match someone to a task or job.

Today, in a world where customer service has taken on increased importance, it is critical to examine whether traditional interviewing techniques can assess anything about a candidate’s customer service competency.  Executives must be able to mobilize an entire organization and build a customer service culture.  A customer service representative must know how to handle difficult and demanding customers.  And technicians and pilots must know how to deliver good service internally and externally.

Allen Huffcutt has researched extensively the interview questions and methods that hiring managers and committees use.  Huffcutt has found that most interview questions are in fact ineffective and not at all predictive of subsequent employee performance.  Here are common interview questions, across many different types of jobs that people apply and interview for:

1. Why should we hire you?
2. What do you consider your greatest strength?
3. What do you consider your greatest weakness?
4. What do you see yourself doing in five years?
5. What do you know about our company?
6. Why did you leave your last job?

Look at the list again.  Can you guess which of these questions Huffcutt found to be ineffective?  Many of the questions require the candidate to extol his own virtues, and charming people certainly know how to do that.  Prepared candidates can certainly talk a good game about why you should hire them, and what their strengths are.  In fact, these people even make weaknesses seem like strengths—example: I sometimes forget how much time has passed because I am so focused on my work, that is my weakness!

Other questions require the candidate to speculate about the future (what will you be doing in five years) or construct some one-sided explanation of what happened in the past (why did you leave your last job).  All of the questions are what Huffcutt calls first date questions and require some sort of “performance” by the candidate except the fifth question “What do you know about our company?”  That question let’s you know whether the person took the time to find out about your organization. It also matters how much they do know.  That shows initiative and interest, which are keys to successful service delivery.

In fact, there are other questions that are even better then question five.  The more you can ask people to provide specific examples and experiences, the better the question and the more insight you will gain into that person’s capability to execute on service delivery.  For an executive level position, the question may go something like this: “Tell us about a time you were involved in a specific initiative that resulted in measurable improvement in customer service in your department—and tell us the role you played in that initiative?”  For a customer service representative, a great question is: “Can you give me an example of when you actually dealt with an irate or a difficult or demanding customer or passenger?  How did that turn out?  What did you learn from that and how did you use it in your subsequent interactions with customers? OR Have you ever had to say “no” to a customer? How did you do it? How about saying “no” to someone on your team?”

Questions that ask people to provide specific, personal examples are powerful because they demonstrate results or lessons learned.  Some experts have also said that if a candidate can quickly recall examples, then that is a good sign. That means that the experience is fresh or made a lasting imprint.  It also decreases the chance that the candidate is making up a story.

The most important asset in any business is its people.  That is true whether your make bread, build airplanes or fly them.  It is people who make the difference in terms of how customers experience and perceive the service and its value.  So select your teammates, your employees, or your managers wisely.  Make sure they can tell you how they have built a great service culture or contributed to one. This will enable you to find the right fit. To find someone who is going to help enhance your organization.



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W. Warner Burke, from Columbia University, is an expert in organizational change.  Burke’s work with a variety of organizations indicates that for a true change initiative to be successful, focus and change must occur at multiple levels:

• • Systems level
  • Work-unit level
  • Individual level

Through our work at ServiceElements, we have seen many aviation-related companies struggling to breathe life into customer service initiatives, hoping that they will become “part and parcel” of their culture.  But it takes more than hope. Inevitably their initiatives failed because they were not addressing all levels of their companies.

So, what within these levels can change?

System Level – The system level includes mission, strategy, service culture, and leadership.  Is customer service an explicit strategy that the leadership of the organization agrees upon?  Does the overall culture reflect this strategy as a priority?

Work Level – The work-unit level includes standard operating procedures, management practices, reward systems, and strength of teamwork.

Individual Level – The individual level includes training programs for employees, managers, and leaders, and whether the right people are in the right jobs.

The bottom line? Hiring a company to do a one-day workshop on customer service (which means change is being initiated at the individual level only) is doomed to failure. It must be accompanied by critical analysis of the company’s system and work-unit levels. Clearly, the training will do little good if, for example, customer service is not a part of the company’s mission and leadership does not address work-unit level activities such as developing standard operating procedures and reward structures that reinforce the training and the mission.

Sure, training is a natural part of any customer service initiative – but so is assessment.  Leaders must be bold enough to assess their organization at all three levels.  Companies must understand where they are at now, in terms of customer service, and compare that to where they want to go in the future. It can’t be done without a comprehensive service audit.  If service is truly going to differentiate your company, then you must embark on a total solution.  Those who address only one of Burke’s levels without addressing the others will never do anything more than just talk the talk…or maybe even worse.

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