Pre-Employment Assessments Address Call Center and Sales Retention

As companies worldwide face an ongoing challenge staffing their contact centers and sales departments, JOBehaviors, a pre-employment behavioral assessments provider, is offering Call Center Customer Service Agent Assessment and Inside Sales Assessment.

The high turnover in sales and customer service comes at a steep cost. According to industry research, hiring, training, and replacing a single contact center agent can range from $7,500 to $10,000. Global call center turnover rates can be as high as 60 percent, according to some industry sources.

On the sales side, the financial impact of hiring reps is significant. The cost to advertise, hire, and train one sales representative can range from $15,000 to $20,000. Turnover rates in sales exceed 30 percent annually.

Having the right sales reps in place has other financial impacts, of course. The performance gap between top sales professionals and their lower-performing counterparts is staggering, with studies showing that top-performing inside sales representatives can generate up to four to five times the revenue of low performers, according to Mark Tinney, CEO of JOBehaviors.

The JOBehaviors assessments provides a data-driven approach to hiring by measuring essential behavioral traits linked to high performance in customer service and sales roles.

"We typically generate approximately 500 behaviors, which are then rated by the subject matter experts and statistically analyzed in order to identify the high-performance domain of the job," Tinney explains. "Essentially, we are identifying candidates in the applicant pool who possess the behavioral approach to the job of proven top performers."

By leveraging predictive analytics, this assessment enables employers to consistently hire candidates who are best-suited for the demands of the role, leading to reduced turnover, enhanced customer satisfaction, lower training costs, increased productivity, higher first-call resolution rates, and improved operational efficiency, according to Tinney.

To make its assessments, JOBehaviors sets up clients with accounts in its system and provides them with a link to the assessment. The clients then provide the link to job candidates either by embedding it in their online recruitment postings or via email. The assessment takes candidates approximately 10 minutes to complete. Upon completion, the candidate sees a Thank You screen, and results are instantly emailed to the client.

The score is based on a percentile equivalent and translated into a one- through five-star rating. One and two stars represents the bottom 50th percentile of the candidate pool. Three-, four-, and five-star candidates represent the top 50th percentile. The higher the score, the more the candidate aligns with job requirements.

"We recommend our clients administer the assessment as close to the front of the process as possible. The goal for our partners is to hire an entire workforce in the top 50th percentile of performance," Tinney says.

"Hiring the right employees is crucial for call centers looking to optimize customer interactions and operational efficiency," Tinney says. "Our assessment provides an objective, consistent, and highly predictive approach to identifying candidates who are naturally inclined to succeed in customer service roles, helping businesses hire smarter and retain longer.

"Sales success hinges on hiring the right people who possess the resilience, motivation, and consultative selling skills necessary to thrive in a competitive market," Tinney states. "Our assessment delivers an objective and highly predictive method to identify top-tier sales talent, helping businesses maximize profitability and workforce stability."