Call Center Interview Questions and Answers for Beginners

to answer the question tell me something about yourself always always highlight your career and previous job experiences first because you're basically applying for a job but if you don't have those if you're a fresh graduate you want to talk about your hobbies your how you are as a person what you did in school your accomplishments and as much as possible relate them to the job of a call center agent if you have a call center experience you can just say i'm sheena a graduate of computer programming for four years i worked as a customer service

representative for an e-commerce store that sells kitchen supplies my task was to answer customers questions about order delivery dates as well as process payments and refunds for them it was a challenging job but i learned a lot from it but what if you have a job experience but you have no call center experience how could you relate your previous job to the job description of a call center agent well here is a format i recommend you want to start with your first name and then your educational attainment next you still want to talk about the

task involved in your previous job experience and lastly this is when you relate the two jobs together the idea is to emphasize an element in your previous job that is also present in a call center agent's job description hi i'm sheena i graduated a two-year vocational course in computer programming after graduation i worked as a science lady in sm at the ladies department for six months and then as a service crew in the milk tea store for nine months as a sales lady my task was to assist customers when they're fitting clothes in the dressing

room as a food service crew my task was to clean the store serve milk teas and process customers payments one thing i learned from both of these jobs is that people buy product because they need it but what makes them come back for more and become a repeat customer is an exceptional customer service when i found out that your company is looking for customer service agents who would serve customers internationally i just couldn't pass up the opportunity and decided to apply but what if you couldn't relate your previous job to the job description of a

call center agent maybe you were a nanny or maybe you were a construction worker these two jobs are just so different from the task of a call center agent and if this is the case then don't sweat it you can still state your first name your educational background the task involved in your previous job and but you want to add one thing and here's what you want to add you want to acknowledge the fact that you don't have a job experience but you need to emphasize that you understand the job description of a call center

agent and that you know what you're getting into let me just give you an example so right after you state your first name your educational attainment and the task involved in your previous job you want to add something like this i know that my previous job experience is different from a call center agents but before i decided to apply here i did a lot of research i asked a lot of call center agents and i knew fully well the workload and stress involved in working in this industry and i still really want to take on

this challenge but what if you're a fresh graduate and you have no job experience well this gets a little trickier because you have nothing to show up to the interviewer because you just graduated and you don't have a job experience so let me just show you the format and what i recommend first you still want to say your first name your educational attainment but this time talk about your accomplishments in school if there's any after that if you don't have any accomplishments in school then you tell your interviewer a story about yourself what i mean

by that is you could talk about your hobbies like reading books watching movies maybe you like solving puzzles and how you are as a person maybe you're an introvert or an extrovert what what are you proud of in your life and your dreams so as much as possible you want to create a connection between your answer and the job description of a call center agent for example you like reading books that could probably mean that you like improving yourself or maybe you like solving puzzles that could mean that you're analytical or maybe you like watching

foreign movies which means you're curious about the culture of other people around the world something that paints you in a good light hi i'm sheena i just graduated computer programming last september and since i don't have a job experience yet let me tell you about my life as a student instead when i was in college i was the editor-in-chief of our new school newspaper i also loved joining extracurricular activities especially sports whenever i could any activities that involves a lot of people you could expect me to be there i guess what i love about it

is the feeling of being a part of a group i'm an extroverted person so mingling with people comes naturally to me and even gives me a great pleasure i guess i'm what you would call a people person if you ask me about what i'm most proud of about myself i guess it's when i managed to graduate college without any failing grades my course is a really tough one lots of students usually drop out within the first and second years because of stress and pressure but somehow i was able to push through it all and make

my parents happy and for that i am proud why should we hire you so for you to be able to answer this question we first need to understand why interviewers ask this question and they ask this question for two reasons first is they want to gauge your level of confidence and second they want to see how effective you are at convincing people so if you can sound confident and convincing when answering this question you're good interviewers usually ask this question when the interview is about to end at this point of the interview your interviewer already

knows your professional background your educational background and so this question really is less about your professional and educational background this is really more about how confident and convincing you are in this case i recommend three steps for you to be able to figure out your answer to this question the first step is i want you to pick one good reason for the interviewer to hire you it could be a goal it could be a positive trait of yours it could be anything that paints you in a good light and the step two is you need

to pick a common cause and a problem to solve and then the step three would be to support or back up your answer you should hire me because i'm a person who pays very close attention to quality when i decide to do something be it as simple as cleaning a kitchen or as significant as exploring a new career i always give it my hundred percent and i really believe i could apply this to customer service you see my number one rule when helping customers is as much as possible they should not have to call for

the same problem twice that to me is the very definition of an excellent customer service of course depending on lots of factors this isn't always possible but if i can help it i will make sure that customers know what they have to know right on the first call and that their concerns are addressed to the best of my ability while also following the company policy this way customers are satisfied there are no unnecessary repeat contacts in the future and the workforce is as strong as it should but what if you couldn't come up with any

scenario what if you just couldn't think of anything you can just mention the benefits of hiring you that's it and you're done it doesn't have to be a scenario this is the example you should hire me because i want to build a career in this industry and i intend to stay long-term i know that this could be a stressful job i know that the shift is mostly at night and i know that the schedule changes from time to time but you see i only graduated high school and as far as i know this is the

only industry where i have equal opportunity as everyone else where i actually have the chance to build a career and i would really love to take advantage of that and make that happen specifically in your company if you give me a chance to work for your company you won't regret it i always make it my goal to keep learning and improving my short school education won't stop me from absorbing everything that you have to teach me i'm also not going to be one of those employees who leave after months of being hired i intend to

establish my roots here why do you want to work in a call center in the philippines if you quit school or leave your current job to work as a call center agent the likely reason 99 of the time is going to be money you want to earn a higher salary you want to get better benefits in your workplace but is it actually okay to tell your interviewer that your reason for applying for the cost center job is money and for me personally i think it is okay and i know that for most jobs mentioning money

as your main reason for applying is usually a no-no but in the case of a call center and in the philippines this is the exception and that's because in the philippines when people work in a call center it is common knowledge that people work there because of the money and there's no shame in that and your interviewer knows that you know that everybody knows that i want to work in a call center because this is the only industry where i know i could earn enough to pay for my sister's education try as i might the

starting salary i was getting as a nurse just couldn't fully support my sister's college please understand that i'm not saying this to complain but to simply state a fact i understand that you might have reservations in hiring me because i'm a nursing graduate and i'm from a different field but i do intend to stay in this industry for the next five years for now my priority is my sister's education and working in the call center is the only way that i could make that happen i'm aware of the stress i'm aware of the graveyard shift

and the irid customers as well as the pure hard work necessary for this job and i am fully prepared what is your greatest weakness in this case i suggest that you reveal a weakness that you truly are struggling with as humans we have a lot of weaknesses but i want you to pick a weakness that is okay to have in a call center workplace what i mean by okay to have is a weakness that will not interfere with the task of a call center agent now in step two and the last step i want you

to explain the steps you're taking to overcome your weakness or if not to overcome to at least rise above that weakness i'm terrible at making small talks i used to convince myself that this is not a weakness that because i'm an introvert this is just how i'm wired and that small talks are superficial anyway but then i realized hmm small talks are actually necessary you see you simply can't ask a stranger about his regrets and aspirations because that would be weird you first need to test the waters and make bite-sized interactions and you can only

do that with small talks and i thought to myself well this is definitely something i should improve on so every day i made a conscious effort to smile strangers talk to them during parties and i think i'm making progress face-to-face conversations with new people don't rattle me anymore i'm still not the greatest at it but i've definitely improved i actually even enjoy it at times and now here is the second sample answer my greatest weakness is that i tend to procrastinate when i was still a student i would work on my projects at the last

minute and end up scrambling when the deadline comes what i noticed was i only tend to procrastinate on big and complicated projects but never on small ones for example i could work on a regular daily assignment on at school with no problem but working on my thesis is just too overwhelming so to deal with this i read blogs about productivity and one technique that particularly worked for me is to break down a large project into a series of mini projects this way i'm not overwhelmed and i tend to feel motivated every time i complete a

single mini project what are your strengths so what i want you to do is to get a pen and paper make two columns the first column will be the hard skills and the second will be your soft skills you also want to make sure that the soft scales and the hard skills are useful or related to the call center industry so for example you have one hard skill your experience in customer service and then you have two soft skills able to work under pressure and attentive listener so here's my sample answer for that i believe

one of my greatest strengths is my ability to work even under pressure having worked in customer service i fully know that this job could be stressful at times and that i won't only be dealing with smiling happy customers but also with irate and frustrated ones in my three years of experience i've probably dealt with almost all types of customers i'm also an attentive listener and by attentive listening i mean i listen not only to the words that the customers are saying but also to the words that they are not saying the non-verbal cues the tone

of voice the pauses they equally important when it comes to dealing with customers efficiently and i'm fully equipped to handle that for example you had an experience in sales and you want to highlight that as your hard skill so then it would make sense that your soft skills would be something like being relentless or strategic relentless is someone who doesn't give up that easily and strategic is when you are approaching a problem logically you're approaching a challenge in a strategic way so these soft skills make sense for someone who had an experience in sales and

here would be my sample answer i am relentless and strategic and i owe that to my experience in sales for three years in my previous job as a salesman when a potential customer said no it was my rule to not take it as a final no instead i looked for opportunities to make the customer say yes you would be surprised at how many customers can actually be influenced when you exert that extra effort every time a customer says no but i hear some hesitation in her voice i take that as a queue to push a

little harder instead of taking that hesitant no as a final no i change gear and ask the customer about her concerns about the product that i'm selling the goal is to get her talking so i can listen to her then i can gauge exactly what type of person she is what motivates her and how i can influence her best most of the time it works your company might be a little different from the company i was working for but i'm confident that the skill i acquired is universal and can be applied to your company to

close deals and skyrocket your sales describe a caller to a blind person in this case because a blind person cannot understand any description related to sight then you will have to appeal to his other functioning senses and that means as the sense of hearing taste smell touch and even emotional feeling a blind person cannot see but he can hear smell taste touch and even feel emotions describe color red to a blind person think of red as something warm and nourishing it's what you feel when you're warming yourself up by fireplace or when you're sipping a

hot dinola on a rainy day it's the security you felt when as a little child you were startled by the thunder and your mother rushed to hug you it could also be a lover's passionate kiss red is love now green green is the melody you hear when you're in the middle of a forest it's the singing of birds the fresh air you breathe the murmur of a river when you're stressed these melodies will relax you because green nurtures life green is slow but it moves with purpose it's gentle yet powerful where there is no green

it's hot dry and dusty green is life blue blue is the feeling you get when you're having a massage while listening to your favorite music it washes away your stress and lets you live in the moment blue is also confidence when you're certain that you can do something exceptionally well that's blue you become cool calm and collected in short blue is tranquility and confidence combined sell me this pen step one is you need to ask questions by asking questions you will be able to pinpoint the exact needs and wants of the customer after that we're

gonna proceed to step two and that is to create the features that fit your potential buyers needs and wants this way you won't have a hard time selling the pen to your interviewer because it's the pen that she specifically needs here's a sample answer so sell me this pen sure but i'd like to know how many pens do you own a dozen wow that many huh is there a reason why you need that many well technically i could survive with only one but i have this annoying habit of losing a pen on a regular basis

on estimate how many pens do you buy per month well i wasn't counting but i'm sure not a week goes by that i don't lose at least one so an estimate per month i replace around four pens oh make that six because sometimes some of the inks dry up how much does each pen cost 10 pesos each well i choose the cheap one so i can buy them in bulk stephanie what would you say if i tell you that from this day forward you will never again lose a pen in your life nor spend an

outrageous amount of money on unreliable pens hmm is that so you see this pen right here this is not an ordinary pen this pen is equipped with a flawless ink flow that never dries up what's more this has a built-in tracker really how does the tracker work all you have to do is download an app and connect this pen to your phone once connected you'll be able to track the live location of your pen 24 7. interesting how much does it cost you can get this for only 500 pesos and i know what you're thinking

too expensive but if you do the math this pen is actually 4.3 times cheaper you spend 60 pesos per month on average right well the ink of this pen lasts up to 3 years with your usual supply of cheap hands you'll end up spending around 2 000 pesos in 3 years with this pen you will only spend 500. now you really intrigued me but what if i forget the pen at home even if i have a tracker i still wouldn't want to go back home just for a pen you know easy you have two options

either you activate the notification of the app to notify you and the pen is three meters away from you or you can buy two one for the office and one at home if you really need that extra security you will still save a lot mind you but you see one really is enough one of this pen is equivalent to your three year worth of supply excellent i'll get it instead of asking three to five question you can ask at least two questions the first question that you're gonna ask is tell me what is that one

thing that annoys you the most when using a pen so that question alone is already going to identify your potential buyers needs or wants so that's a great question to ask if you want a straightforward answer you want it you want to get it over with as soon as possible that will get the job done for you and then you might want to ask one follow-up question and that's it here's a sample answer do me a favor sell me this pen tell me what's the number one thing that annoys you the most when using a

pen well i hate the fact that i can't erase anything when i write with a pen i would have preferred to use a pencil but of course that's out of the question so i don't really have a choice does the appearance of the pen matter to you does it have to be a certain design color or look i honestly don't care how it looks like as long as i can rely on it 24 7. that and the ability to erase typos know jan i have the perfect pan for you based on what you just said

this pen matches everything you need from a pen this pen is equipped with an eraser that's right an eraser but note this is not a pencil think of this as a breed between a pen and a pencil it has the high definition ink of a pen but with the capacity to erase typos like a pencil and when it comes to reliability well our company has been in the business selling pens for two centuries now we would never survive this law without prioritizing the quality of our pens so where do you see yourself in five years

no matter how skilled of an agent you are if you're gonna make it clear to your interviewer that you're not gonna be staying in the next five years in the industry then it's going to diminish your chances of getting hired it doesn't make sense for them to spend money on your training if you're already sure that you're gonna leave in the next five years therefore the general goal for answering this question is to convince your interviewer that you're gonna be staying in the company in the next five years that's it for a newbie applicant who

finished a degree there are two possibilities if i'm lucky enough to be accepted in this industry then i'll be devoting my next five years to learning the art of customer service if not then i'll pursue my degree as a nurse the reason why i'm prioritizing call center over my degree is for me career-wise i feel that there's a better opportunity for me to be a call center agent than to be a nurse if i end up becoming a nurse i would need to work abroad if i ever want to get a decent salary the thing

is i don't want to go abroad if i can help it i want to be with my family and your industry is the only industry that can make that happen for me so in the next five years i see myself being a highly skilled agent and if i'm qualified enough i will probably aim for a promotion if i'm lucky enough i plan to advance my career and stay in your company long term one specific thing that attracts me to your company is your emphasis on work life balance i have been in this industry long enough

to know that this job could get pretty stressful i'd like to finally settle down in a company with a sustainable work culture that'll allow me to stay long term and thrive second example if i'm lucky enough my plan would be to advance my career and work here in your company long term the reason why i want to work here specifically is your advance program this is the first time i've ever heard of such a program where you teach employees who want to advance their career use skills this perfectly aligns with my values i feel alive

when i know i'm improving it would be such an honor to see myself as one of the beneficiaries of this program five years from now as someone without a degree i believe this is the only industry where i think i have a real shot at making a career so in the next five years i intend to be well established in this industry whether as an agent or in higher position doesn't matter to me right now whichever it is one thing that i know for sure is that i will continue improving myself until i'm good enough

to land a job as a call center agent why did you leave your last job if your reason for leaving your last job is an innocent one then this is not something you should worry about an example of this is if you have to relocate from one place to another if you were laid off again this is not something that you should worry about because this is not under your control here's an example our company lost a major client which led them to cut cost because their policy was last in first out i was one

of the 50 employees who are let go my team lead however can attest to my performance when i was still working for them if you had health problems and you are now fit to work then there really is no reason for you to lie as long as you can provide the necessary documentation to prove that you are now fit to work then you're good i quit my last job because i had to recover from a stomach ulcer my doctor recommended that i take a six month break that break helped me with my recovery and now

i'm ready to go back to work i can also provide the necessary documentation for my doctor if necessary maybe you want a higher salary or maybe you just want better opportunities and promotion here's an example for the record i love my previous job as an e-commerce chat support but i really feel the need to diversify my skills and work for a financial account at this time that opportunity just doesn't exist in abc company where i used to work since they only have e-commerce and telco accounts one of the main reasons for leaving the last job

is the higher salary it's common knowledge some of them might accept your answer but some of them might even press you and ask more follow-up questions and they will corner you and they will ask you whether or not one of your main reason for leaving your last job was the lower salary and if you're applying to his company because you wanted the higher salary and this is what i recommend that you answer well compensation is also important to me it reflects the value i deliver to the company and my customers i'm less focused on that

though it'll always follow as long as i keep my skill set sharp and in demand which to me is the most important thing if you were fired due to personal reasons here is a sample answer i was let go basically what happened was i had a problem at home and i got depressed it affected my performance where i used to receive a performance bonus every month for three straight years i became one of the poor performing agents eventually my tl noticed it she did her job talked to me about it and even suggested ways on

how to deal with it i felt better for a while but because i wasn't really addressing the root cause it didn't go away for good eventually i was let go all because i was in denial about the problem i let my personal problem affect my professional life and needless to say i only have myself to blame it was a great wake-up call though one thing i learned from that experience was when it comes to a problem it doesn't pay to be in denial and pretend it doesn't exist i need to be brutally honest with myself

because that's the only way that i could deal to the root cause and deal with it objectively there are three things that i like about this answer the first one is the applicant talked about the time the three straight years when he was receiving performance bonus every month so that shows that the applicant wasn't really always a poor performer it means that there was a time in his career in in his last company where he was doing great until the problem happened the second one is he acknowledged that his team lead did everything she could

to help him he didn't blame anyone from the company about his problem and the third one is he highlighted the lesson that he learned from the experience so even if he made a mistake it was not altogether a bad thing because he learned something from it i know that there's a lot of you out there who quit your job on impulse you quit your job you went a wall you just couldn't be bothered to send a resignation ladder and to work for 30 more days so you went awol but then after a few months you

realized that you're running out of money and you need to go back to work again and you only have the call center as your only option but then you now have an awol record if the current company is going to do a background check on you they are going to find out that you left your last job because of your own doing now again do not lie about the reason why you were fired but of course you have to add something tell your interviewer that it was because of a personal problem don't say that it

was your previous company's fault it will sound like you are victimizing yourself another thing you cannot say that it was because you were so stressed out because after all this is the call center industry if you were stressed out and you couldn't meet the demand of the job then what are you doing here the only remaining option here is to make your interviewer believe that there was a force behind your poor performance behind your impulse to go a wall this way you will at least have a little chance of getting hired here is a sample

answer um there is no better way to say this i was let go because i went a wall this is one of the greatest regrets of my career life i'm not usually someone who acts impulsively but i was in a really dark place at the point in my life and i wasn't able to think objectively i spent three years dealing with irit customers over the phone and i was great at it yet there i was with that one problem and i let it get the best of me it was a wake-up call for me though

i'm now in the process of getting better at dealing with my problems and i also surround myself with loving friends as my support system my goal now is to be able to deal with my personal problems without affecting my professional life how do you handle stress mention a coping behavior that is actually healthy and most of all sustainable here's an example for me the most effective way to deal with stress is by following a strictly healthy routine every day i eat clean exercise and make sure that i get enough sleep this by far has been

the most effective technique for me every time i get reckless with what i eat don't get enough sleep or become too lazy to work out i immediately experience brain fog and feel cranky at work but when i follow this strict routine i can talk to any customer of any mood and feel capable of handling any issue so as you can see in the sample answer the applicant mentioned a healthy way of coping with the stress he mentioned exercise getting enough sleep eating clean these are your safest bet you can never go wrong with these types

of coping behaviors this also shows that you have a great self-discipline because exercise takes a lot of self-discipline eating clean as well as getting enough sleep so this is a great answer in the call center industry stress is the common denominator don't go here don't tell your interviewer that you you you never get stressed because that's unrealistic and it's not convincing and don't say that you handle it poorly again go to the middle choose the middle and that is telling your interviewer that you do get stressed but you have an effective action plan on dealing

with it and here's a simple answer i deal with stress by dealing with it before it even happens i plan first i take note of the common problems and imagine the things that could go wrong at work i then lay out a solution for each problem this way i can go to work knowing that i have a prepared solution for each problem the thought of being in control relaxes me which in itself is a great stress reliever of course there are times when i encounter unexpected problems when this happens i simply ask for help from

my superiors and take note of the solution in case i encounter them next time and the last tip that i can give you to make your answer more convincing is to try to tell a story about a situation that you've dealt with in the past where you have handled stress effectively when i'm stressed the first thing i do is identify the type of stress i'm experiencing i classify stress into two kinds productive and unproductive for me productive stress is the stress that aligns with my skill set an example is the stress that comes from dealing

with irit customers i have a nap for dealing with people so even if talking to iron customers is challenging i thrive on it and i usually love it this is a type of stress that a good workout and a deep sleep can easily wash away and then there's the unproductive stress it's the stress that isn't beneficial for my growth for example i won't work as an encoder for me it was stressful because it did not align with my skill set the thought of spending the entire shift interacting with nobody was just a constant struggle for

me so i ended up quitting and this is exactly why i choose to work in customer service because this is a type of stress that i thrive on so in this sample answer the applicant told a story about how he became an encoder but eventually quit because he didn't like the nature of the job this is a great story to tell because the reason why he quit the job was because there was no one to talk to and fortunately in a call center setting this is this problem is not going to happen especially if your

account is a voice account you're always going to be talking to customers every single shift of course there are accounts where you might not be able to talk to people especially if it's a non-voice account so you might want to change the answer a little bit and make sure that it fits to your situation but just remember that the important thing here is to just make sure that you're mentioning a coping behavior that is healthy and sustainable if you can't do that then you're good don't say that you never get stressed it's unrealistic and don't

say that you handle stress poorly just go to the middle and you'll be fine all right guys that is all for today if you need more interview tips for call center applicants check out my playlist of the call center job interview questions i think i already have around nine to ten every questions answered by now so check that playlist out and thank you so much for watching bye you