Recently at the International Customer Service Association (ICSA) conference in San Antonio, Barbara Morrison, a Human Resources Director for Suddenlink Communications, and Jeff Furst, President and CEO of FurstPerson, presented a case study titled Separating Myth from Fact: Hiring for Peak Performance and Service. Based on this discussion, FurstPerson has summarized three key strategies that enable contact center hiring managers to separate myth from fact when developing and operating contact center hiring processes. Using Suddenlink Communications’ experience as our example, we will focus on proven strategies that separate myth from fact in contact center hiring.

Strategy 2: Build a data-driven hiring model

Many human resource organizations cannot quantify their hiring models with performance improvement. This has created challenges with receiving funding when these projects compete for financial resources against technology or operational projects.

Suddenlink has developed a hiring model that links candidate data with performance data. The goal is to understand when a candidate completes the selection process if they meet performance requirements. This data-driven approach allows them to quantify their hiring model which is based on job performance.

For example, by taking a data-driven approach, Suddenlink was able to quantify the following performance linkages:

Individuals with higher assessment scores compared to individuals with lower assessment scores had the following performance improvement:

Attendance – 29% improvement
Sales – 44% improvement
Quality – 20% improvement

In addition, the use of a data-driven model enables Suddenlink’s hiring managers to make a more informed hiring decision. Each job family has a specific hiring profile based on the job competencies, discussed above, and performance data. When job candidates complete the selection process, Suddenlink can automatically match the job candidates to multiple job models. The chart below highlights this capability.



We will feature another key strategy for effective contact center hiring in an upcoming post.