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So, you’re getting ready for a customer service interview.
If you’re nervous, that’s normal!
By preparing for your interview, you’re giving yourself the best chance of landing the role.
Your cover letter and resume already got you through the door, so you must have the right skills.
Now, you just need to dazzle the interviewer.
This article will help you do just that by explaining how to answer 40+ common customer service interview questions.
Tips for acing your customer service job interview
Here are a few tips to help you answer all customer service interview questions. These tactics cover thinking about the interview, structuring your answers, and presenting yourself.
They can make all the difference.
Understand the interviewer
Ultimately, the interviewer's goal is to figure out whether you can do the job. So, you need to communicate that you can thrive in the role.
The interviewer will ask about your past behavior and characteristics to predict how you’ll behave in the role. They are trying to understand how you’ll cope with the demands of working in customer service, such as demanding customers and a busy workload.
Use the STAR framework to get a customer service position
The STAR framework offers one of the best ways to structure your answers. It helps you turn complex, vague examples into straightforward stories that clearly state the challenges and outcomes.
STAR shapes your answers into four parts:
- Situation: What was the situation, and why was it challenging?
- Task: What was your role? What were your responsibilities in the situation?
- Actions: What actions did you take to solve the situation? Why did you choose to act that way?
- Results: What positive outcomes resulted from your actions? Did you manage to avoid any poor outcomes?
Following this roadmap makes you more likely to stay on track and give answers that prove your value.
Demonstrate your understanding of excellent customer service
As a customer service representative, you must know your body language, tone of voice, and the answers you give customers.
Considering this, how you answer customer service interview questions gives the interviewer insight into how you will perform the job.
While it’s important to maintain good posture and answer confidently, studies show that maintaining eye contact and smiling are the two best ways to win the job.
For online or phone-based roles, try not to ramble. Instead, focus on giving clear answers and sounding engaged when the interviewer speaks.
Customer service interview questions
Here is a list of over 40 questions an interviewer may ask in a customer service interview. There’s a guide to answering each question, including an explanation of what the hiring manager wants to know. Let’s get started!
What is your background in customer service?
Here, the interviewer wants to learn more about your relevant experience. They want you to tell the story of your history in customer service.
Prepare a streamlined answer including key details, such as your education and career history.
Tips:
- Describe the roles, duties, and responsibilities you’ve had. Quickly explain how you developed your skills in each role and how you improved or took on new tasks.
- Explain your customer service experience and the skills that make you a good fit for the role.
- Consider starting at your current job and tracing back to the beginning of your career.
How do you manage challenging customer interactions?
This is an important customer service interview question because while you can’t avoid complex customer interactions, you can manage them.
Here, the interviewer wants to understand how you cope with challenging people and uncomfortable situations. It’s a test of your interpersonal skills and conflict resolution.
Tips:
- Use the STAR framework to illustrate a challenging interaction you managed well. Stick to the facts and speak respectfully about any difficult or angry customers. Emphasize that you handled the situation without harming the customer relationship or causing problems for the company.
- Employers want to hear that you’re empathetic, an active listener, and a problem-solver. Explain how you put yourself in the customer's shoes to understand their perspective.
- If this is your first customer service job, explain a challenging interaction in your previous workplace, volunteering, or education.
What is your approach to handling multiple customer requests simultaneously?
This is a time and task-management inquiry. Customer service roles require you to handle many tasks, such as answering calls, investigating customer concerns, and processing orders.
The hiring manager wants to know if you can judge the urgency of tasks and manage customer expectations in a fast-paced environment.
Tips:
- Describe how you prioritize tasks, including the tools and techniques you use.
- Explain how you would delegate tasks to your team.
- Give examples of situations where you handled tasks effectively while still providing good customer service.
How do you ensure customer satisfaction?
Customer service reps' top goal is keeping customers happy.
This is one of the customer service interview questions to ensure you provide a great customer experience and effectively solve any queries or problems.
Tips:
- Highlight your communication skills, including warmth, empathy, and positivity.
- Share your positive customer satisfaction ratings from past roles with the interviewer.
- Demonstrate how you solve customer queries quickly and effectively.
Narrate a time when you exceeded expectations to assist a customer.
Here is an opportunity to show how you go above and beyond for customers. The interviewer wants to ensure you’re motivated, have a positive attitude, and work hard to provide exceptional service.
Tips:
- Use STAR to explain your best customer service successes. Describe the actions that reps would usually take and how you surpassed them.
- Explain how your exceptional behavior benefited the company and customer.
- Elaborate on your thought process and why you went further for this customer.
How do you address unresolved customer issues?
While you can’t solve every customer issue, you can address them in ways that leave customers content.
Employers want to ensure their customer service representatives manage customer expectations and proactively solve problems.
Start by acknowledging the importance of promptly addressing and resolving customer issues–unresolved problems can lead to dissatisfaction and harm the company's reputation.
Tips:
- State the alternative solutions you would offer to solve the customer’s problem, such as contacting another department.
- Use STAR to clearly illustrate how you handled a situation with an unresolved issue.
- Show that you would remain positive, that these events are rare, and how you learn from them.
- Explain how you document these situations, remain transparent, and follow up with the customer to demonstrate your customer service skills.
Did you experience a situation where you dealt with a difficult coworker?
Customers are only one of many challenges in customer service jobs. Sometimes, a colleague can cause problems.
Here, the interviewer wants to be sure you are reasonable, emotionally intelligent, and professional when dealing with conflict. They also want to assess your judgment—who do you think is a difficult coworker?
Tips:
- Use STAR and choose a situation in which a coworker was clearly in the wrong, such as a colleague repeatedly coming to work late.
- Reiterate that you remained respectful despite the conflict.
- Focus on your coworker's behavior rather than their character. For example, “He was 30 minutes late every day,” rather than “He was selfish and lazy.”
How do you stay informed about products and company policies?
Employers want to ensure that you keep learning and taking initiative. Think of examples that show your proactive approach to staying on top of product, industry, and company changes.
Tips:
- Explain how you stay up-to-date, whether it’s by checking the policy manual, subscribing to company newsletters, or attending training sessions.
- Detail any informative out-of-work activities you attend, such as industry-specific webinars.
Describe a successful experience with upselling or cross-selling.
The interviewer wants an example of when you used product knowledge to boost sales.
A good answer will show that you understood the customer, were persuasive, and thought quickly.
Tips:
- Use STAR to create a clear example.
- Explain how you communicated the value of the more expensive or additional product.
- Relate your experience to the company's values, mission, and products.
How do you safeguard confidential customer information?
Businesses must keep customer data confidential. As customer service agents often take customer data, their mistakes can cause serious consequences.
By asking this question, the employer shows that they value privacy and maintain high standards. They want to test your skills, knowledge, and experience in safeguarding confidential information.
Tips:
- Demonstrate good knowledge of your region and country's privacy and confidentiality laws.
- Explain your step-by-step process for maintaining data privacy.
- Emphasize that this issue is important and that you can follow guidelines.
What is your strategy for handling repetitive tasks?
A good customer service rep should be able to accurately complete repetitive tasks. The interviewer wants to ensure you can manage the dull processes in the role.
Highlight your organizational skills, efficiency, and ability to maintain high-quality work no matter what.
In addition, acknowledge that repetitive tasks are crucial for the smooth operation of any business. After all, these tasks often form the backbone of reliable and consistent customer service.
Tips:
- Talk about any tools or processes you use to speed up monotonous tasks.
- Emphasize that you maintain good productivity and high standards even during repetitive work.
Have you encountered and overcome language barriers with customers?
As a customer service representative, your job is to assist everyone who needs help, including those who don’t speak the same languages as you.
This customer service interview question is testing your patience, cultural understanding, and communication skills.
Tips:
- Show that you aren’t judgemental and detail the methods you use to communicate despite language barriers. Explain how you use tools, such as translation apps, and change your way of speaking to help customers.
- Mention any other languages you speak.
- Give an example of a time when you successfully helped a customer who didn’t speak the same language as you.
What do you consider the key quality for exceptional customer service?
A quality is a characteristic a person has. The interviewer wants to assess the candidate's understanding of customer service.
The most important qualities in customer service roles are those that help you work with people. Choose from soft skills like empathy, good communication, problem-solving, or patience.
Tips:
- Whichever quality you pick, provide an example to support your decision.
- Exude confidence in your answer to show your expertise and deep understanding of the job.
Share a brief introduction about yourself.
This is one of the more complicated customer service interview tasks. It can leave you unsure whether to share that you have a cat called Marmite or describe your work history.
Here, the interviewer is trying to find out what kind of person you are and how your background applies to the role.
Make sure your answer focuses on relevant experiences and education. However, you can throw in a couple of interesting facts to break the ice.
Tips:
- Give a short description of your relevant employment and education history, focusing on professional rather than personal experiences.
- Tailor your story to the role you are interviewing for.
What is your perspective on customer service?
This one tests your awareness and understanding of a customer support role. The interviewer checks whether you have reflected on and learned from previous experiences.
When crafting your answer, take some time to think about what good customer service means to you.
Tips:
- Craft an answer that explains your customer service philosophy, why you have that perspective, and how it informs your work.
- If you haven't worked in customer service before, explain your perspective from the customer side.
Do you collaborate effectively within a team?
A malicious employee can cost a business significantly. In fact, studies show that hostile workplaces increase emotional exhaustion and lower employee engagement.
The interviewer asks this question to gauge whether you’ll be a good team member. They are checking to see if you’ll be a great addition to their customer service team and contribute positively to the company culture.
Tips:
- Highlight how you build rapport with your team and emphasize that you value teamwork.
- Explain times when you have helped a team work better by implementing new ideas or improvements in workflow.
What are your strengths and weaknesses in customer interactions?
It’s challenging to figure out the right number of weaknesses to share to avoid sounding hopeless. On the other hand, highlighting too many strengths may sound arrogant.
The interviewer wants to see that you are self-aware and capable of giving a balanced answer while selling your positive qualities.
Tips:
- Highlight your strengths that match the key qualities in the job posting. It’s likely to be qualities such as empathy, patience, time management, and staying calm under pressure.
- Give examples of situations that show your strengths.
- Your weaknesses should be based on your real struggles, but they should be framed in a way that shows you are learning and improving.
How do you maintain composure in stressful situations?
This is a chance to talk about your resilience. Your ability to handle stress is key. It tells the employer that you can stay in a customer service role long-term and will not blow up at customers.
Tips:
- Acknowledge that you catch stress early and explain the steps you take to manage it.
- State the good practices you follow to sidestep stress, such as task management and calming customers.
What's your approach when you're unsure of an answer?
Sometimes, customers ask questions you don’t expect. As a customer service representative, you’ll need to be able to handle any request, from the silly to the complex.
The interviewer wants to know you can handle uncertainty and problem-solve calmly.
Tips:
- Explain how you followed the best practices when dealing with difficult questions in previous roles.
- Use STAR to show how you kept cool, empathized with the customer, and created a good outcome.
What drives your motivation?
In customer service interviews, this question checks whether you can stay motivated at work, even on hard days. Having a why will drive you to do a better job and work harder.
To answer this question, pinpoint what drove you to apply for this customer service job, why you suit it, and what inspires you.
Tips:
- Explain how your motivation helps you, and give an example of a time you used motivation to improve your work.
- Match your motivations with the company’s mission and values.
- Use positive motivations, such as helping others, overcoming challenges, or helping the company grow, rather than negative answers like “Getting home at the end of the day.”
Why do you believe you're suited for this role?
Whether or not you’re an experienced customer service representative, this is a chance to show off your best qualities and hard-earned skills.
The most important thing here is showing a strong understanding of the role, company, and requirements. Use the details from the job description to show why you’re a great fit.
Tips:
- Fit your answers to the company goals, missions, and culture.
- Share your enthusiasm about the role.
- Be confident! Show the interviewer that you believe in yourself and describe your unique qualities, skills, and perspectives that make you great for the role.
What drew you to apply for this position?
People often apply for jobs because they need money or dislike their current workplace. However, the interviewer wants to hear that you’re passionate about the role.
Instead, give an answer that tells the hiring manager that you proactively chose the job. Study the business and role to find a story and identify the parts of the role and company culture that suit you.
Tips:
- Explain why you enjoy customer service, including the skills, experience, and qualities you have that match the role.
- Use specific examples of things you've learned about the position or company that are attractive to you.
- Show enthusiasm about the role and describe how the job fits with your long-term career goals.
Walk me through your post-query process.
Here, the interviewer wants a step-by-step explanation of how you handle customer queries. A query is essentially a question asking you about something. They want to ensure you have a logical and practical approach to handling tasks.
Tips:
- Be logical and follow a step-by-step approach.
- Explain how you would answer a question you expect to receive in the role often.
- Show that you take the time to understand the query and customer.
Detail a time when you provided exemplary customer service.
This is an opportunity to use the STAR framework to describe a situation where you went above and beyond. In addition, explain the positive results for the customer and company.
Here, the interviewer is ensuring that you are motivated to provide unbeatable service.
Tips:
- Clearly explain the problem, the usual approach, and how you went above it.
- Describe the thought process and customer understanding that made you do more for this customer.
- Make sure to practice the answer so that it quickly comes to mind.
What was a challenging problem you successfully resolved?
Troubleshooting problems is one of the most important customer service skills. Interviewers want to be sure you can solve challenges.
This question allows you to use an example from any aspect of your work, not just tricky customers.
It’s a fantastic opportunity for those who haven’t worked in customer service to showcase their problem-solving skills. But make sure to link them to the role!
Tips:
- Explain a challenge you overcame with forward thinking and initiative.
- Use the STAR method to create a clear narrative and show how you came out on top. Don’t downplay or exaggerate details–stick to the facts.
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Reflect on a mistake at work and your response to it.
The hiring manager is assessing whether you can own up to and learn from mistakes. After all, customer service representatives aren’t perfect.
By answering this honestly, you show that you’re self-aware and humble enough to admit error without passing the blame.
Tips:
- Clearly explain your mistake using the STAR framework.
- Choose a smaller mistake you solved proactively and end with a positive outcome rather than a severe or unethical mistake.
- Show accountability and describe what you learned from the mistake.
What workplace values are important to you?
Here is a fantastic opportunity to show that you have studied the company. To find the company's values, check Glassdoor reviews, LinkedIn, the job posting, and the “About Us” page on the website.
Once you understand their team’s mission, you can tailor your answers to them.
Tips:
- Think of some values and tailor them to your story to show that you share them.
- Give short examples of times you stood by your values.
Highlight your expertise from your resume.
The hiring manager wants to ensure you created and put effort into your resume. Your care towards your application reflects how much you want the job.
To answer this question, highlight the most relevant skills and expertise to the role on your resume.
Bringing your resume to the interview can help you answer this question, but remember to learn where key information is.
Tips:
- Elaborate on your resume by explaining how you developed skills, what they involve, and how you’ve used them.
- Explain how your expertise fits the role and benefits the business rather than simply reading off your resume.
What attracts you to this company?
The interviewer wants to ensure you took the time to learn about the company. The best way to show that is to put time into research!
Familiarize yourself with their customer service practices and company policies.
Tips:
- Highlight any projects, missions, or goals the company is working towards that you want to help them meet.
- Express your enthusiasm for their products, services, and workplace ethics rather than focusing on employee benefits like high pay, short commutes, or company perks.
How do you handle negative customer feedback?
Negative feedback happens from time to time. How you handle it can either make the situation worse or fix it.
The interviewer asks customer service questions like this to assess whether you can manage and learn from criticism.
Tips:
- Show that you take feedback well and that customer satisfaction is important to you.
- Clearly state that you empathize with customers’ concerns and apologize when necessary.
- Use the STAR method to explain how you tried to resolve a situation where you received negative feedback.
- Explain what you learned from the feedback and how that affected your future work.
What is your method for prioritizing tasks?
Customer service roles require excellent multitasking and a strong understanding of task urgency to complete work on time.
This is a common customer service interview tactic that tests your task management skills. The interviewer wants to ensure that you have systems in place to manage your workload effectively.
Tips:
- Show you understand the consequences of poor task management, such as ending up with an angry customer.
- Show how you adjust to changing priorities and meet deadlines. In addition, give examples of times when you managed a heavy workload effectively.
- This is a great opportunity to showcase any tools or processes you use for task management.
- Emphasize that you complete all work to a high standard, even when busy.
How do you manage disagreements with colleagues or managers?
A great customer service representative can communicate effectively and de-escalate conflict with anyone, whether customers, coworkers, or managers.
Here, the interviewer wants to understand how you work in teams. By adding managers to the question, they are assessing how you handle authority.
Tips:
- This is one of the customer service interview questions where you can give an example using the STAR framework detailing how you handle conflict.
- Emphasize your drive to find a solution and maintain professionalism at all times.
- Focus on the positive outcomes of your problem-solving style.
Share an instance when you conveyed difficult news to a customer.
This one tests your tact and communication skills. The employer wants to hear that you are empathetic and responsible when delivering bad news.
A customer receiving difficult news is at risk of becoming an angry customer. Consider how you would frame the disappointing update to ensure the customer feels the most accepting or positive.
Tips:
- Use the STAR framework to create a response.
- Show your understanding of how the customer would feel.
- Explain what you did to make it up to the customer.
How would you approach a situation with incomplete information?
This customer service interview question tests your ability to take initiative, delegate tasks, and apply good judgment. The interviewer wants to know whether you can understand customer requests and handle uncertainty.
Customer service reps must be able to acknowledge when they lack information to direct the customer to the right place.
Tips:
- Explain how you identify and clarify missing information.
- Define how you would go about helping the customer.
- Describe how you would manage the customer’s expectations to ensure they still have a positive experience.
Provide an example of turning an upset customer into a satisfied one.
An upset or angry customer can harm the company by leaving a bad review. As a customer service agent, your job is to keep customers satisfied.
This customer service interview example establishes whether you can manage customers' problems, fix them, and leave them happy. If you can calm upset customers, you’ll be a fantastic member of the support team.
Tips:
- Use STAR to create a step-by-step example of how you helped an upset customer. Illustrate an experience in which you used emotional intelligence, empathy, and company knowledge to make them a satisfied customer.
- Apply your empathy and show that you understand why the customer was upset.
Describe a time when you couldn't resolve a customer's issue.
For this customer service interview example, the hiring manager wants to assess how you manage your emotions and delegate tasks.
Customer service agents have to deal with many customers’ problems. While customer service reps can solve most problems, a few will be impossible to fix due to unreasonable demands or issues that require assistance from another team member.
Tips:
- Choose a moment when you couldn’t resolve the issue, but there was a positive outcome.
- Employ the STAR framework to shape your experience into a clear story.
What is your experience of receiving poor customer service and how you would improve it?
The best employees think deeply about their work and learn at every opportunity. This reflection allows you to show that you learn from other people's mistakes and explain how you define good customer service.
Use this example as an opportunity to show that you have insights into customer service and a knack for the role.
Tips:
- Use the STAR framework to explain a situation where you received poor customer service due to a clear error.
- Describe the exact actions you would take to improve the situation while speaking respectfully about the agent–emotional regulation is key for customer service.
Describe a situation where empathy led to resolving a customer's issue.
Empathy is the ability to understand how another person is feeling. It's one of the key qualities of a customer service representative.
It gives you insight into the customer's perspective, enabling you to help them effectively. Here, the interviewer is trying to determine whether you understand empathy and how you use it.
Tips:
- Follow the STAR framework to construct a clear example.
- Explain the actions you took as a result of your empathy.
- Emphasize the good outcomes you created and the negative outcomes you avoided.
Explain a judgment call you made and its outcome.
Dealing with people requires you to make snappy decisions correctly. Here, the interviewer wants to be sure you have good judgment and understand the consequences of your actions.
Tips:
- Use STAR and clearly explain why you made the decision you did. Pick a good decision with a positive outcome.
- If you can, choose a situation you’re likely to encounter in the role you are interviewing for.
- Show that you take accountability for your actions and can think through a problem step by step.
What are your career aspirations?
Hiring managers want to understand your goals to see how you will fit into the business long-term. They are checking whether your aspirations match the role and opportunities on offer.
Before the interview, consider where you would like to be in five years and where you see yourself in ten years. Consider why those career goals are so valuable to you.
Tips:
- Align your answer to the role you are interviewing for.
- Explain how you're working towards your desired goals and how that adds value to the company.
- Even if you’d just like to perfect your skills in your current role, sound passionate about your future.
Have you ever bent the rules to assist a customer? What was the situation and its outcome?
Be very careful when answering this question. Most employers want to ensure that you will follow their guidelines. Going off the books can cause problems for the company.
Tips:
- Tread carefully and stick to some minor guidelines that you bent, such as a set procedure that wasn’t useful in that situation, rather than hard rules like customer privacy regulations.
- Ensure the outcome is positive.
Describe a scenario where you had to decline a significant customer request.
This is one of the customer service interview examples testing your decision-making skills.
While you can usually give customers what they want, sometimes they will make unreasonable requests. The ability to let a customer down while maintaining good rapport is key.
Tips:
- Use the STAR framework to explain why the request was significant and why you had to decline it.
- Emphasize that you remained professional and got the best possible outcome despite rejecting the request.
How would you assist a customer who hasn't received help despite working with multiple agents?
Customer service interview questions like this are asking you how you deal with disgruntled and frustrated customers.
Show your empathy and explain how you would help without putting down your colleagues.
Tips:
- Illustrate how you would approach the customer to build rapport.
- Describe a situation where you were able to help a customer despite them working with other agents.
- Focus on the positive outcomes of the situation.
Next steps for landing a customer service role
Customer service interview questions investigate your task management, communication skills, and your past work history.
Reading this article is an excellent step in your preparation for your interview.
Good luck!
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