Best Places to Look for Customer Service Representatives: where to post your vacancies?

When hiring customer service representatives, don’t just post a job ad and hope for the best. That is because a rough estimate shows that 57% of customers will stop doing business with you if they have a poor customer service experience. Therefore, finding the right customer service representative is a crucial step for your business. 

There is a wealth of talent pools available. Utilizing these will help you maximize your reach and source the best possible candidates for your role. This article outlines the best places to look for customer service representatives. 

Use Your Personal and Professional Network

As the saying goes, it’s not what you know, but who you know that counts. 

• Your personal and professional network should be viewed as a valuable resource for recruitment. The advantage of using your network to find talent is that individuals come with personal recommendations, which can be seen as a reduced risk for recruitment. Reach out to customer support managers or directors within your network for recommendations. You can also ask any consultants, contractors, or business partners – pretty much anyone with whom you have a positive business relationship. This is an excellent way to source highly recommended people with a proven track record. 
• Your current staff are an excellent resource for sourcing new employees. Some companies offer incentives for referrals, encouraging existing team members to recommend strong candidates from their personal or professional networks. 
• External recruiters, researchers, and headhunters: also consider drawing on them. These professionals can do the hard work for you, sourcing high-quality candidates and connecting you with people who match the skill set you are looking for. 

In addition to your professional networks, consider people within your reach who may assist you. These could either be individuals seeking job opportunities or people who can connect you with potential candidates. Ask around, and you might be pleasantly surprised at the outcome. 

Do Your Research Online

The internet is the most expansive talent pool for customer service representatives. Whether you’re advertising or headhunting, the web is the quickest way to reach a significant number of potential candidates. Let’s look at some examples of the best places on the web for sourcing customer service personnel:

LinkedIn

Did you know that LinkedIn has more than 740 million members worldwide and nearly 55 million registered companies? With such a pool of resources, it is no wonder the platform is such a hit with employers. 

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. As such, it’s the ideal place to go when you’re looking to hire. You can post jobs on LinkedIn or easily find potential candidates and network with them, whether you’re currently hiring or not. It’s about building connections that will help you down the line. 

An excellent area to explore on LinkedIn are “Groups”. Here people within similar fields of work share content, ask questions and post job ads. These are some of the top groups for customer service:

• Customer Experience Network
• Customer Experience Professionals
• Customer Support Professionals
• Customer Service Professionals
• Customer Service Excellence
• Customer Service Managers
• Customer Service Champions

Many customer service groups are industry-specific, so search to find those most relevant to your organization and join. 

Customer support job boards

Specialist customer support job boards are a great place to look for customer service representatives who actively seek new opportunities. Try the following websites for a large talent pool of customer service representatives:

• Multilingualvacancies.com is great for customer service roles that require additional languages.
• Indeed is a top-rated site amongst jobseekers, where you can find people to suit almost any position. 
• SuccessCOACHING is a job board specifically designed for customer service professionals.
• Google for jobs allows you to post your vacancies where they will be seen directly by people using the search engine.

Freelance sites

In 2017, the United States had 57.3 million freelancers, which is expected to rise to 90 million by 2028. This is a significant pool of people with various talents and skills, and a good number of them work in customer service, earning US$ 36,695 a year. 

Sites like Upwork and PeoplePerHour are a great resource if you’re looking for casual or remote customer service professionals. Here you can search for people with the relevant skill set or post jobs. People on these sites typically work on a self-employed basis, which is ideal if you need temporary or ad hoc workers. However, they are useful for discovering and connecting with talented individuals and hiring, without commitment, to see if they’re a good fit for your company. You can always offer to take them on permanently later. 

Consider Your Interns

Many companies have internship programs for college or university students or recent graduates. However, not all organizations nurture these interns for future employment in the company. If you’re not viewing your interns as potential employees or not currently taking on interns at all, you are missing out on a quality talent pool. 

The role of an intern doesn’t have to end with making coffee, running errands and shadowing other employees. Consider giving these individuals the opportunity to try their hand at customer service tasks within your company. Remember, these tend to be educated and competent individuals! 

Allow your interns to take on tasks with greater responsibility, and you might be pleasantly surprised. Not only will you be offering them significant experience, but you can view this as an investment. Look to create a nurturing internship program that aims to prepare people for potential employment in your company at the end of their placement. 

By offering the possibility of a job at the end of the placement, you will be incentivizing dedication and productivity from your interns. This allows you to get maximum value from them during their internship and beyond. Your interns can also be viewed as a valuable part of your professional network, from which you can gain referrals for other potential candidates. 

Use Conferences

If you’re looking for Customer service managers, team leaders, or executives, conferences and industry events can be a great place to network with others in the industry and meet potential candidates face-to-face. Even if you’re not currently hiring, the connections you build at events like these can be called upon later down the line. Examples of customer service events like these include the Institute of Customer Service Annual Conference and the CSGUK annual conference. 

When preparing for a conference or event, check in advance for a list of registered attendees. Make notes of people you want to connect with, as this can structure your networking efforts on the day, so you don’t leave everything to chance. 

Think in terms of quality connections rather than quantity. Establishing personal connections with people is much better than treating it as a speed networking event. Don’t race to collect as many business cards as possible, but instead, take the time to form connections with people, so you leave a lasting impression. That being said, don’t spend all your time at one table, either. Move around the room to meet new people. 

It’s a good idea to make some notes to accompany any business cards you collect. Jot down what you discussed with each person, which will help jog your memory later. Remember to send follow-up emails to meaningful connections you made. 

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As we have shown in this article, there are many places you can look when you are hiring customer service representatives. That’s why it’s so crucial to remain methodological.

Online research and use of sites such as freelance sites, social networks and job boards will help you reach a vast talent pool. Take all opportunities to talk about your business, what you offer and what you’re looking for wherever possible. This may include your network, any industry events you attend and, of course, your professional network. 

When you’re ready to start screening new talent for a customer service role, assess their language and communication skills with Pipplet. Like Shopify, for example, start saving your recruiters’ time and select even better candidates to serve your customers and build loyalty.

[Discover] Pipplet pre-hiring tests for Customer Service Representatives