I am looking for a customer service skills assessment test I can give to my Reps to see what their current skill level is, and determine what areas of customer service I need to spend time training in.

I will also use this on a go forward basis any time I hire a new Rep.

I work for a technology help desk.

So far in my search I have found numerous "personality" type assessment tests that say they are geared towards customer service, but none that focuses on just customer service skills without all the personality info.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again.
Karen

Hi sewninluv, this is a great idea. How about making your own skills assessment? We made our own a couple of years ago and it's still being used so must have been useful:-) We sat down with our best CSRs and created a profile of the "ideal" CSR. From the profile/skills list we made up questions to test others. It's paper based but works well.

Good luck.
G.

Hi Glath,
Hi Karen,

can you please reveal an example of such a questionnaire; I am interested in both personality type assessments and professional skills assessment CS?

I am too very much interested in assessing my new staff. Managing a group of agents for EU support the one and biggest difficulties I am facing is that the team consists of the people who knows several languages and this would be the only one decisive point when hiring staff. I feel that this is incorrect and should be changed so therefore looking very much forward to any of examples you might provide.

Best regards,
Babilona

If there is $$ in the budget, I wouldn't reinvent the wheel as there are research-based assessments available. Most often though, the $$ isn't there, or needs to be utilized in another way. Writing your own skills assessment is do-able, and I would only caution that you take great care in the writing of them, and double, double check everything. Then have another set of eyes (with a functional brain) look at them, then check them again.

One thing you want to be careful to avoid is compounding skills into one factor. As a rather simplistic example, "Listens carefully and communicates clearly."

Might sound great, but listening and communicating are two disparate skills. I may write and speak well, but don't listen worth a darn. How then could this factor be accurately rated?

So to break this into two factors( "Listens carefully" "Communicates clearly") allows the rater(s) to more honestly assess.

Additionally, define the ambiguous to level the playing field. Using the "Communicates clearly" as an example...I once worked with a person who had a wonderful command of the English language. I understood each word that he said, but when he strung them together in a sentence, it was impossible to understand what he meant! So "Communicates clearly" could be a skill heading, followed by a definition of the entirety of the skill desired.

Communicates Clearly
Has the ability to create understanding in both written and oral communications. Understands and uses correct grammar. Can spell accurately.

I hope this helps, and I wish you the best,
Karen

Oh...PS to Babilona - -

Myers Briggs for personality assessments. I would strongly discourage you from trying to write those.

Karen

I am from the Caribbean and a service excellence trainer , can someone please help me with the same question a personality test / interview for KPIS for service professionals

Thanks Karen,

that's great. Don't you mind to share an exemplaric professional skills assessment with me via empresa@hotmail.de? Just to see how such test should be structured and to see what skills you think an agent should have in order to be able to provide an adequate customer service.

Thank you lots and kindest regards,
Babilona

A colleague of mine runs a business called eSessments, which provides a variety of customized assessment tools for business hiring, training, coaching, employee development, succession planning, etc.

There is one assessment tool created specifically for customer service.

These are not "off the shelf" tools, but customizable, based on the needs and goals of the organization utilizing them. The organization's management creates a profile of the ideal candidate, and then all assessments are measured against that. It points out strengths and areas for improvement of each candidate or employee.

Good luck with this!

Chuck Dennis
Knowledgence Associates