In a face-to-face conversation, demeanor does a lot of the communicating for us. The right candidate understands the high risk of miscommunication over the phone when working customer service and seeks to make up for the lack of visible demeanor with an engaging, helpful and positive tone. It's also important to maintain that tone for each customer. What to look for in an answer:

• An enthusiastic, helpful tone of voice.
• Strategy for maintaining inflection throughout a shift
• Willingness to be coached

Representatives use a range of technologies to help them assist customers quickly and accurately. Specific programs used will vary from company to company, so a candidate who is comfortable with technology and learning new programs will be valuable. For instance, your candidate will most likely need to juggle a few programs at once while engaging the customer, such as working the phone's status, accessing the customer's information and communicating via chat if help is needed during a call. What to look for in an answer:

• Prior experience with call center technology
• Adaptability
• Willingness to learn new software

There are three types of call centers, and the types of customers that the representative helps will vary. Some receive incoming requests from people wanting to order products. Some receive incoming complaints, and other call centers make outgoing calls. The mood of customers can vary dramatically for each situation, and each type of center poses different challenges. What to look for in an answer:

• Experience handling a variety of customers
• Understanding of call center challenges
• Development of useful skills, such as de-escalation techniques

Call center representatives should have the ability to do multiple tasks at the same time, such as listen and engage with customers, understand their complaints, find information on the website or within the software for them and solve their problems. This requires the ability to process a lot of information quickly. It's easy to make mistakes when trying to do multiple things at the same time, but it's of utmost importance that they maintain high levels of accuracy. What to look for in an answer:

• Experience working in high-volume call centers
• Techniques for maintaining accuracy
• Efficiency in their process

Call center representatives need to remember a lot of product details so that they can answer questions quickly and cut down on the amount of information that they need to track down. While representatives can look things up, they'll have more time to listen to the caller if they have some things memorized. An experienced employee in this industry will have memory devices and techniques to help them recall ever-changing information. What to look for in an answer:

• Habit of checking for changes in products
• Sincere desire to improve retention
• Techniques for remembering product details