Introduction

In this assignment one is going to develop a structured interview selection guide, which can be

used to conduct an interview for the job posting our group will create. Firstly the author will give

a brief description of the company in which he will describe the organization and the purpose of

the organization. Author will also discuss about the kind of Job, the title of Job, location of the

job, if the job is permanent or part time job, shifts and also the salary structure etc. Author will

also discuss the job responsibilities in detail with the tasks required to do on daily basis,

important responsibilities which can occur a few times. Author will also discuss tasks requiring

involvement with co-workers and also other Department, qualifications required by the candidate

to apply for this job, knowledge, skills, ability and experience required; and relevant to the

competencies identified for this position. Author will also discuss, once a candidate apply for the

job, then what kind of interview questions will be asked and if those questions are related to the

job position. Author will also discuss about a graphic scale of 1-5 points to rate the desired

responses for each question. Author will also calculate the benchmark to calculate if an applicant

is successful or not in the interview and follow with the conclusion of this assignment.

Discussion

Convergys is one of the top providers of outsourced customer service in the world. The company

has 75,000 + employees serving customers in seventy countries, operating in thirty languages.

Convergys a globally recognized country which provides services for credit card issuers,

consumer product companies, network communication manufacturers, pharmaceuticals

manufacturers, securities companies, communication companies and 89 companies out of fortune

500 countries (online). The company has divided into three business segments which are

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customer service, information management and employee care. Customer care a segment

provides outsources customer care services, information management provides outsourced

billing and information services, the last segment, employee care provides outsourced employee

care services. In this assignment author is going to discuss about the companies first segment

which is customer care outsourcing, Convergys has three centers in north India in Gurgaon, India

and the biggest center is called ``ATRIA`` in which Convergys has integrated their outsourced

customer service provider. Convergys`s largest process is Orange, which is a UK based telecom

company, Orange has outsourced their customer services in India through Convergys. Orange

has approximately 4000 employees working in India only. The job which has been posted is for

Customer care officer in Gurgaon, North India and the job status is permanent and has rotational

shifts timing. The Customer service department operates 24 hours a day, is it is one of the best

telecom company of United Kingdom. Therefore all employees have rotational shifts and have to

work even on grave yard shifts. The Orange has two types of customers, one is pay as go

customers, which is also known as prepaid mobile phone services and another one is pay

monthly customers, which is also known as pre paid mobile phone services.

A customer care officer’s major task is to answer the calls and give resolution to customers. I

order to give resolution to the customer a customer care officer has to have a very good product

knowledge. A customer care officer needs to know about all the different kinds of tariff plans;

promotions which are going on, orange branded mobile phones and there features too. Also one

of the major responsibility of a customer care officer is to give a resolution to the customer for

example if an customer is not able to make calls or not able to send text messages, it is customer

care officer’s duty to solve the customer problems by guiding them over the phone. It is very

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usual to get angry customers calls in telecom companies due to various reasons, a customer care

officer duty is take initiative and handle the customer with a very delicate manner. A customer

service officer need to get expertise in using applications, there are many applications which a

customer care officer need to use on the daily basis, through these applications one can raise

actions for resolving the problems which are related to more technical matters for example

coverage related problems, black berry services etc.

The job posting includes below mentioned criteria:

JOB TITLE: Customer Care Officer, REPORTS TO: Team Leader, LOCATION-: Gurgaon,

India

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES 

 Summary – (Role Summary) 

Handle all facets of Orange telecom services, voice process. Answer incoming calls and provide

information and provide resolution. Top-ups, activate and deactivating services, promoting

orange products.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: - (Key Activities) 

• Work within a rotating roster of shift work that includes evenings and weekends, 

• Consistently meet customer satisfaction targets as set by the Team Manager 

• Consistently meet Conversion Targets as set by the Team Manager 

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• Consistently meet call centre KPI’s (key performance indicators) set by the Team Manager 

• Participate in coaching sessions as set by the team manager to increase communication skills,

personal sell statistics and obtain performance feedback. 

• Maintain a high level of product knowledge with initiative to seek out knowledge to solve the

Irritate customer’s queries. Work as part of a large team, with moderate flexibility attending

coaching classes familiarizations as invited. 

• Demonstrate consistent punctuality and a strong work ethic 

• Carry out any additional tasks as assigned by the Team Manager or any other member of the

management team. 

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS 

Education: Graduate and Undergraduate (pursuing graduation) 

EXPERIENCE: 

1) Previous call centre experience in a customer service or sales industry desirable, but not

essential. 

2) Experience of at least 1 year in any International voice process.

TECHNICAL SKILLS: 

•Strong interpersonal and customer service skills 

•A candidate MUST have excellent verbal and written communication skills 

•Positive and enthusiastic attitude 

•Working knowledge of Microsoft word and excel 

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PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS: 

Majority of work is performed in a normal office environment. 

The statements in this job description are intended to represent the key duties, essential nature

and level of work being performed. They are not intended to be all responsibilities or

qualifications of the job

Salary: MAX - up to 26k (thousand) (Indian rupees)

Shift: Rotational shifts (includes day shifts, evening shifts, night shifts, grave yard shifts)

Interview Guide:

Screening interview will be the first objective of an HR personnel; the purpose of the interview is

to narrow the pool of candidates for a second, more lengthy interview. The main reason behind

this kind of interview will be to select the candidates whose qualifications fit with the job

description and also HR personnel see if, in general, a candidate would fit in the organization.

Also HR personnel will conduct a pre-test of Basic English knowledge; this test will also help to

narrow the pool of applicants. As Orange telecom is a UK based telecom company, most of the

customer will be English speaking customers therefore it is very important for an employee to

have a basic knowledge of English language.

A combination of 8 behavioural and situational questions will be asked to the candidate in the

next round of the interview and desired responses are also mentioned below the questions. It will

not be a practical if we desire the same answers which has been construct therefore an HR

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personnel need to identify the key words, body language, which candidate will use to explain the

situations and behaviour responses he or she would give to answer the questions.

1) How will you handle irritate customers? How will you respond to them?

(The above question will be asked to find that how customer care officer will be able to

manage customer’s complaint without being dominated: should not be over-whelmed by

a disproving customer. In other words, HR personnel need to find out the patience level

in the candidate, which is very important factor because in Telecom Company a customer

care officer will often face irritate customers)

2) Tell me something you did outstanding at your previous work, something which was not

mandatory or which was not part of the routine activities assigned to you, but you did it

for the benefit of the customer?

(The above question will asked to determine if an candidate is willing to do more at the

work place, also if candidate has potential to satisfy customer service needs)

3) Explain with an example, how would you handle a customer, if he/she is asking for

something which is not in company’s interest or which would violate a policy of the

company?

(The above question will be asked to determine that if a candidate is able to keep balance

between company policy and customer needs. Answer to this question will also able to

identify that if the candidate is rigid or more flexible with the thought process)

4) Give me an example from your previous job where you had to rely on information given

to you verbally to complete a task.

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 (The above question will be asked to determine whether the candidate has good listening

skills, ability to listen actively listen. Also, whether a candidate use listening skills, such

as re-phrasing, ensuring accuracy and if the candidate is willing to ask more questions to

clarify the questions.)

5) Tell me what you will do in a situation when you will find out that your supervisor or a

manager is not being fare with you.

(The above question will be asked to determine that the candidate is going to follow the

companies policies, candidates temperament, decision making skills. Also it will help to

find out if the candidate will take right way to solve the problem rather than taking things

personally and try to resolve the issue in cow-boy style)

6) Tell me about a time that you had to use your judgment and make a decision in your

previous job?

(The above question is asked to determine the behavioural competency at the work place

where a candidate needs to make decisions in a logical manner. Because as being a

telecom customer care officer one need to make judgments in order to take decisions)

7) If you had to turn down a request from a valued client, what would you do?

(The above question will be asked to determine that the candidate needs to keep balance

between company policies and customer needs in other words candidate need to use the

communication skills to make the customer understand the situation and also adhere to

company’s policies and remain reliable to customer)

8) Can you explain how you contact or initiate communications with customers?

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 (The above question will be asked to determine whether the candidate has potential and

skills to build healthy, professional relationships with customers and co workers. And

also it will help to find out if candidate is enthusiastic to build larger customer base)

In the process of constructing a graphic scale of 1-5 points to rate the candidate answers to the

above interview questions, one thing our group has realized that it is not fare to judge any

interview on only questions and answers. Because in the interview it’s not only about obtaining

the desired answers from the applicant, rather their body language at the time of interview

matters a lot because actions speak louder than words. Because we not only speak with our

words but we also communicate with our body posture, facial expressions, hand gestures, actions

and body language. For example, when HR personnel shake hand with applicant, there are

certain things which need to be taken under consideration, like an applicant shakes hand firmly

and if he or she looks in the eye. An applicant needs to maintain a good eye contact which does

not mean that they need to stare at the person continuously. Smile is also very important, an

applicant need to smile when appropriate and it should be done naturally. However, if an

organization would still like to implement a constructed graphic scale of 1-5 points to rate the

applicants, they can simply rate the applicant by using the above interview questions and rate

applicants on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest).

Once an applicant clears their interview and gets selected, the applicant has to go through a three

week training program, which is mandatory for every new employee. The three week training

program will be divided into three parts. The first week of the training program is “Voice and

Accent” which concentrate on the basic communication skills of the person and train them to

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neutralize employee’s accent. Also employee get trained to use soft skills in order to handle

irritate customers. After first part each employee has to pass a test in which an employee will be

asked certain questions, in other words this test is taken just to determine if an employee is ready

to take calls and able to communicate without any major problems. If the language instructor

does not satisfy with the performance on an employee than that employee again might have to go

through another week of communication skills training. The second part of the training focus on

the product knowledge and applications which will be used in order to handle customer needs. In

this part of training an employee has to learn and memorize various product characteristics, an

employee has to remember all kinds of different top-up packages and benefits which are included

in all the tariff plans. At the same time an employee has to get familiar with the different

applications for updating the customers telephone accounts and also need to get familiar with the

applications which are used to find out the problems and then solve the problems. After one

week of training an employee then has to clear the test made by the instructor, an employee has

to take the MOCK-CALLS in the test and has provide the resolution to the customer. An

instructor will grade the employee on the basis of communication skills, product knowledge and

also how fast and systematically an employee is using the different applications. The third and

last part of the training program is called “Nesting” which means an employee has to go to the

floor where other customer care officers are taking calls, first few days an employee has to barge

the calls and after that has to take the live calls, each team which is taking nesting has a mentor

in case if an employee is not able to give resolution to the customer. Once an employee clears the

training program and ready to take live calls, then the employee will be assigned to different

teams on the floor.

Conclusion:
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During recruiting and selection process it is very necessary for any HR personnel to determine

the strengths and weakness of the candidate who is applying for the particular job. For HR

personnel the first priority is to determine that the right candidate is applying for the right job, in

order to find out this fact, it is very important to check the qualifications of the candidate and

also work experience of the candidate. During the time of interview there are many factors which

need to be considered and good HR personnel is trained to observe an applicant in a particular

manner. Therefore it would be wrong to judge anybody just on the basis of desired answers,

body language during the time of interview makes a big difference to have a negative or positive

impression on the interviewer.

References:

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http://www.best-job-interview.com/customer-service-interview-question.html (ONLINE,

Accessed on 09 march 2011)

http://www.convergys.com/company/locations/index.php (ONLINE, Accessed on 11 march

2011)

http://pdclive.convergys.com/pdc/New%20Hire%20Orientation/Creating%20the

%20Connection/Convergys%20Overview%202007.pdf (ONLINE, Accessed on 10 march 2011)

http://www.stritch.edu/uploadedFiles/Services_and_Resources/Career_Services/employmentinte

rview(1).pdf (ONLINE, Accessed on 11 march 2011)

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