Ramping up your business’s customer service team is exciting, but sourcing the right talent can be stressful. To successfully expand, leaning on the help of a recruitment agency and providing thorough training is critical. Here are a few tips that will help maximize your company’s mass hiring ramp up efforts when you are ready to start the process of looking for employees.
Have A Realistic Timeline In Mind
The very first thing to do is have a timeframe in mind for how soon you’d like to be up-and-running. Have you determined how many employees you’ll need? Are you hoping to have employees trained and on the phones within a few months, or are you considering a slower climb up? Work out the recruitment process details for how much time you will need to find qualified employees. Make sure to map out the job recruitment phase, like coming up with a well-written job description, setting up advertisements, interviewing applicants, and so on. You’ll also need to determine how long the onboarding process should take, assuming you’ve made the offer—for example, new hire paperwork, background or drug test screening result turn-a-round, training, etc.
There are many different scenarios for different companies hiring new employees for their remote call center jobs or on-location assignments. Consult with other hiring managers in your company to help determine your call center staffing model’s timeframe and approach and how aggressive your hiring process needs to be.
For instance, in one case study, it was necessary to schedule three starting new-hire onboarding classes in a single month for one of our client employers to ramp up the way it needed to.
Hold Virtual Recruitment Events or Job Fairs
In a remote workspace, the best way to improve your workforce is by holding virtual recruitment events. Make it easy for potential employees to get information about you through Q&A sessions and meet-and-greets online. This can help potential workers get a feel for what you are looking for and whether they’d be interested in joining the team.
You can work with a staffing agency (like ours) to attract the right job seekers to attend and let them handle the screening process to present qualified candidates to you. Staffing firms usually have a pre-screened database of available employees in their talent pool. Companies often partner with a customer service staffing agency because they can reduce the time to fill open positions.
Use Temporary Employees To Supplement Your Existing Workforce
Putting the right team together and discovering what skills you are looking for in your contact center’s customer service reps can take time. As we mentioned, using temporary staffing agencies can help you cut costs, save time, and hire the right talent. We explain to our clients that they can think of our recruitment team as an extension of their HR or Talent Acquisition Team.
Hiring employees, especially a lot at once, is an important task to help your company reach its goals. The best staffing agencies will connect you with the temporary employees that suit your company’s customer service needs. Using an agency like this can help ramp up a call center, especially in the virtual world we are now living in, by minimizing the stress on your internal Talent Acquisition team or your hiring manager. The recruiting process can be handled by the agency while the focus on your company’s success and goals remain at the forefront of your internal team.
Maintain Training Beyond the Initial Training
It is essential during a “ramp up” or large volume hiring project to provide the tools for your newbies’ success. This means providing incoming new employees with the resources and training to succeed in their in-office or virtual work from home jobs.
Many employers tend to stray away from educating and training their employees once they hit their hiring goals for a big project like opening a new customer service center. Whether they shift their focus to other projects, etc. it is important to maintain training to help retain your employees, reduce turnover, increase your employee engagement, and maximize your ROI. You could team up with your department managers or leadership team along with a sampling of other employees to get feedback and develop a training program that helps ensure all employees, new and tenured, are exercising your company’s core values and best practices.
Partner With a Recruiting Firm Like Burnett For Additional Staffing Services & Support-
Take a Look at a Recent Customer Service Ramp Up Project
One San Antonio Customer Service Center stated that working with Burnett Specialists helped them fill hundreds of roles. The agency pivots when needed, stays organized and professional, and remains flexible to meet client needs. “Hands down, we would partner with them again in the future,” the client said.
Are you hiring and want help staffing your business?
We are here for you! Reach out, chat with one of our recruitment experts, and let us give you insight into the staffing industry and what will work best for your company’s needs. We’ve worked with lots of client employers over our 45+ years of being in business who have most likely been in your shoes. After all, it’s our job to help careers and companies grow!
