Customer Complaint Officer Interview Preparation Guide

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Here your potential employer wants to know that you are capable of organising yourself properly and ensuring that nothing gets forgotten.

Do you keep a diary? Use Google Calender? Write daily to-do lists? Use wall planners to keep track of out-of-office appointments? Whatever you do, now is your opportunity to tell them!

An ideal answer to this question will demonstrate that you are capable of monitoring a situation as it evolves.

For example:

Whilst working in a call centre as a supervisor, I introduced 'Sugar Fridays' - giving my team sweets and treats to get them through the Friday slog.

Prior to introducing the incentive, I compiled a backlog of sales figures from previous Fridays. I then introduced the incentive on a trial period, continued collecting data and cross-compared the results. There was an obvious peak in sales figures and so the incentive became permanent.

This is your opportunity to tell your potential employer what keeps you focused. Possible answers include:

• Breaking your workload up into daily or hourly targets to ensure that the next small success is never too far away.
• Living a healthy life-style. Eating the right foods and drinking lots of water in the office can have a big impact on your concentration levels.
• Motivating others and promoting a positive atmosphere in the office.

This is your opportunity to assure your potential employer that you are capable of working in line with your objectives and getting the job done on time.

For example:

In my current role, I break down my objectives into daily targets and outline periods of the day when I am going to focus on achieving them. I find this system works well for me and I expect to carry it into my next job.

Only you will know if your team really trusts and respects you. Respectful employees will usually make you coffee, hold a door open for you, properly carry out tasks assigned to them and rarely undermine your judgement.

To maintain this level of respect, you should make time to recognise your employees' efforts, occasionally explain how you reached a solution to a problem (this can help with buy-in for larger changes or projects) and do your best to be consistently level-headed and successful in your judgement - as it only takes one slip-up to undermine your credibility.

It's important to think of and talk about a situation that's relevant for the position you're interviewing for. Ideally this will have had a positive outcome. By doing this you will help the interviewers to understand why you are a great fit for their team.

This question helps your interviewer to gauge whether you understand your role in your current job, and how your efforts contribute to the goals of the organisation.

For example:

The company I currently work for publishes an annual report of KPIs relating to the goals they hope to achieve that year. I extract the company goals that are relevant to my department and break them down into weekly objectives. I then use these objectives to ensure that my team is constantly contributing to the overall goals of the organisation.

Here your interviewer is checking that you are capable of working consistently towards your targets.

In an ideal answer you will outline what your current targets are, then follow this up with a discussion about how you break these targets down into weekly objectives to ensure that you are consistently working towards your annual goals.

Here your interviewer is testing your ability to analyse data. An ideal answer will clearly outline the problem you were faced with, the information you extracted from the data and the changes you subsequently made to improve.

For example:

Problem: The appliance-delivery company I work for was getting consistently low ratings on its delivery service.

Action: I looked at all of the online feedback forms and personally phoned customers who had rated our service 0.

Findings: I found that the majority of our unhappy customers hated waiting in all day for their items to be delivered.

Solution: I piloted a new system where the delivery driver phoned the customer an hour before their item was due to be delivered. This stopped our customers from having to hang around the house all day waiting for their delivery.

Outcome: During the trial period, we saw a marked increase in our customer satisfaction ratings and the new system soon became standard practice.

Only you will know if your team really trusts and respects you. Respectful employees will usually make you coffee, hold a door open for you, properly carry out tasks assigned to them and rarely undermine your judgement.

To maintain this level of respect, you should make time to recognise your employees' efforts, occasionally explain how you reached a solution to a problem (this can help with buy-in for larger changes or projects) and do your best to be consistently level-headed and successful in your judgement - as it only takes one slip-up to undermine your credibility.

Before your interview, you should have researched the company and seen a full job description. This information will be key to how you answer this question and show that you have made a considered application.

You need to try and align the experience gained from your current role to some of the challenges or responsibilities of the role you are applying for. Keep it to a few clear bullet points where you can.

Also think about where you are at your happiest or best. The role you are applying for may be in a new field or industry, but you may already have many of the transferable skills required.

You then need to be able to concisely explain what you can bring to the role and demonstrate how some of the skills you have (making passing reference to some of the experience you have just mentioned) would make you a good fit for this role.

Here your interviewer wants to see that you will bring something to their company and not just fade into the background.

Whilst this question does open the floor for you to recite how you once doubled your team's sales figures, employers are equally interested in hearing about how you have developed and maintained a strong professional network, or how you pride yourself on your reputation for being reliable and hard working.

Whatever you end up talking about, try to keep it short. You don't want your ego to get in the way of you being offered the job.

This question requires you to understand the benefits of setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound) objectives and developing action plans.

For example:

In line with the over-arching goals of the company, I would set personal goals for myself and my team which I would subsequently break down into weekly SMART objectives. I would monitor these closely through general in-office communication and a series of team meetings, as well as through scheduling individual appraisal meetings at 3, 6 and 12 month intervals.

The answer to this really depends on the job/company you're interviewing for. However, it's a good idea to discuss your understanding of the company, processes, products, clients and the marketplace. As a sales team leader, you'll also be expected to deliver strong results against your personal sales and team targets.

This question is set to test your ability to identify and analyse customer insight, trends and data, and drive continuous improvement, by identifying and understanding the root cause.

The interviewer will be looking for an example of where you have taken this insight and subsequently developed, implemented and improved your sales process. This could be through the introduction of training, post-sale procedures, a change in marketing communications, or other process improvements, to ensure that the cause of any future complaint is eradicated.

Tread carefully with this question. Whilst the truth may be that you only get out of bed every morning in order to pay your rent, this is not what your potential employer wants to hear.

This question gives you an opportunity to discuss what has attracted you to this line of work and what inspires you to persevere through the tough times. In a sales role, this could be the adrenaline rush of meeting daily targets, whilst in a customer-service role, this could be the personal satisfaction you gain through helping people.

This is an opportunity for you to show off your research on the role and company.

Talk about the benefits the company has to offer and how they suit you at this point in your career. For example, if you are joining the company as a graduate, discuss how you plan to utilise their highly-structured training scheme.

Also comment on the company's reputation and try to make reference to a recent success you have seen on their website.

This is a bit of a tricky question to answer, as how you answer can determine whether your interviewer thinks you are too strong-minded or, worse, too sheep-like in your approach to work. An ideal answer will show a degree of balance.

For example:

Throughout my term of employment, I keep a constant note of any areas that I feel can be improved. But I only present these concerns to my boss when I have developed in-depth and realistic solutions.

The frequency of these meetings is determined by how stable the company is. If the company implements several changes throughout the course of the year, I am more inclined to provide regular feedback to my boss.

This question is asked to determine whether or not you are going to bring something to the team.

In an ideal answer you will confirm that you are creative in your job role, and markedly so compared to some of your colleagues. You should then proceed to give examples which demonstrate this.

This question gives you the opportunity to tell the interviewer about how you developed a Monday-morning prize-giving incentive to get your team fired up for the week. Or how you introduced daily staff meetings to keep your team engaged with the goals of the organisation. Or implemented a buddy-up training programme to help your new recruits settle in faster.

This question is especially important if you are applying for a management position.

An ideal answer will demonstrate that you are capable of assessing a situation and implementing improvements.

For example:

I started to notice that a lot of customers were complaining about feeling patronised by my agents. In response to this, I listened to the calls these complaints stemmed from and realised that words such as 'wonderful' were being over used.

I then had a meeting with the worst offenders in my team and suggested changes that they could make to correct this behaviour. After this meeting, customer complaints reduced and sales increased.

The answer to this will depend on the job you're interviewing for and your experience.

I would recommend thinking about a specific instance and then discussing this in detail. Outline the process stage by stage and, if there are areas that need improvement, focus your answers on the solutions instead of the problems.

As a leader or manager charged with delivering excellent customer feedback, you will know how important it is that customer feedback and insight are monitored, measured and acted upon, whenever appropriate or necessary.

But how about your agents? This question is very much aligned to your engagement, coaching and development skills. You need to think about the culture, communication and interactions you have with your agents.

Discuss how you impart your knowledge and experience to your agents and how you ensure that they can continue to develop the confidence, skills, knowledge and habits that will drive excellent customer feedback with every interaction.

In asking this question, your potential employer is looking to see that you are prepared to go above and beyond the call of duty when the company needs you.

But you have to be careful when answering, as it is easy to fall into the trap of slagging off your current employer or seeming disorganised. Your interviewer does not want to hear how your current boss failed to provide you with resources or that you once pulled an all-nighter to meet a university deadline.

An ideal answer will centre round the busiest time of your company's year (i.e. the Christmas rush in retail). In your example you should outline the reason for your stretched deadline and say what you did to ensure that you met it.

For example:

Whilst working in retail over the Christmas period, there was dramatic increase in stock which needed processing. To ensure that I continued to complete my daily tasks over this time period, I frequently started work at 5am rather than 7am.

No matter what level we operate at, we are all able to lend our experience of success to our peers - we just have to be careful not to patronise or undermine them in the process.

When answering this question, make sure that you give an example that is truly constructive and had a positive outcome. This will show your interviewer that you understand how to help improve your colleagues' performance without hurting their feelings.

This question is a test of character and is especially important if you are being interviewed for a management role.

An ideal answer will demonstrate that you are able to support your team, even when things don't go according to plan.

For example:

Whilst I was working in a fast-food restaurant, an unexpected coachload of football supporters came through the door. What followed was a hectic half-hour as the few staff we had on struggled to serve the high influx of customers.

To motivate my team, I came out of the back office and signed onto a till in the middle of the counter. From that position, I could support my team either side of me with phrases like 'you're doing well, Kelly' whilst helping to offset the work load.

When the rush was over, I congratulated everyone on their efforts and brought chocolates in for my team the next day.