Hiring front line customer service stars
Following my article titled “If hospitality is theatre are you hiring proper stars?” which we recently featured, I’ve had several people from the hotel industry ask me, how can one ensure hiring the best customer service people? When I discuss customer service at some of the presentations I’m asked to do, I touch on this, by sharing some of the best practices that industry leaders advocate. Here a few tips to consider.
Hire attitude over aptitude: Attitude is the way one thinks and feels about something and is shown in the way one behaves. However, identifying whether someone is masking their true emotions can be challenging, as individuals who mask often go to great lengths in the recruitment process to hide their true personality. Aptitude is the degree of competence and skill one has for performing the role. It is something that can be learned, whereas, trying to change attitude is difficult.
How can attitude be gauged when hiring service staff? One approach is to unearth 3 key qualities that are usually in the DNA of strong customer service candidates;
Extrovert personality: By definition, ‘an outgoing, socially confident person is easier to choose over someone who exhibits shyness. Be careful though, sometimes a candidate’s internal experience may differ from their external presentation, someone may typically be an introvert, but they may also exhibit characteristics of an extrovert when necessary to reach a goal or fulfill an expectation – such as landing the job! Ask them common questions such as ‘How are you?” Their answer will reveal a lot of how they will interact with your guests. Is it a “I’m fine” only response or do they reply with a “Thank you, I’m fine and how are you?” What other answers did you receive? Did someone tell a long story about themselves?
Efficient worker: Customers are there to receive a product and or service. This requires hiring people who can get the job done despite encountering any obstacles. It boils down to the employee’s quality of being apt or fit for the task. Front office and food and beverage service staff have a high degree of guest interface and thus have to respond to problems and immediate requests of guest instantly. I’ve come across many first-level service staff that, despite my bringing up a minor request or problem, simply elevates it to the next-level supervisor - because they either did not fully understand the problem or didn’t care to resolve it themselves.
Attention to detail: That is the ability to notice and focus on the smallest aspects of a task or situation. Ask them to show attention to detail by describing some real-life examples they’ve encountered at work. Take the finalist to lunch as some hotels do, observe how they interact with the server – are they as polite to the server as they are to you as a potential employer? Did anyone ask questions from you? The emphasis here is not on the type of questions they asked but who amongst them had the confidence to ask. Going a step further, ask them after the conclusion of the luncheon, to send you their observations on how the server performed. How acute was their observational skills, did they pay attention to their surroundings and did they notice the small service details – done correct or not? This will show how focused they were during that time. It all relates to “being present in the moment”.
Customer service stars don’t need to have all the answers; they are people with positive attitudes, confident enough to ask questions to go beyond customer expectations.
Satisfying basic customer needs is a bare minimum. The differentiation occurs where guests begin to discover service staff as being exceptional in the dozens of details. You want your employees to pay attention to those details before your guests have to.
Shafeek Wahab - Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Customer Service Trainer and Ex-Hotelier
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