The fact of the matter is that it’s hard to hire good people. This is especially true when trying to fill contact center-type roles, such as a customer engagement center, where turnover can be high, as can job stress. It takes a special kind of person to succeed in this environment.

What you need for a successful CEC is to attract really smart people, retain them, and give them a rewarding work environment. In addition, look to hire individuals for your support team who genuinely care about helping people, and who’ve worked in service industries and roles in the past. 

Here are several ways to accomplish this:

1. Be specific about the role

Don’t hire someone whose talent is managing Twitter to answer the phone and vice versa.

2. Do a skills assessment up front

In other words, make sure they can “swim” before you toss them in the “deep end.” Including a “role play” as part of the interview can help determine this.

3. Offer a stellar training program

Employees will have a smaller chance of getting screamed at if they are armed with the answers to customer questions. Make it easy for them to pull information (like from a CRM) so they can solve customer problems quickly and effectively.

4. Reward employees for great work

When they prove they can in fact “swim” and “swim well” by offering great customer service, take the time recognize it.

With the right technology, a customer engagement center produces customer service support to all the channels where today's customers engage with your business. Download this e-book for best practices for setting up your CEC.