Marketing & Online Customer Support Interview Questions And Answers

Some of the best writers in the world will never be successful content marketers. A superstar content marketer must understand what drives success in their market and within their organization (e.g., understanding Google search, measuring performance, translating data into insight).

☛ Why it’s important to ask this: Content marketing is a lot more than writing; however, I consider this talent to be a foundational element of a superstar content marketer. You have to love what you do.
☛ What to look out for: Look for indicators that they have a passion for writing. Understand what drives their passion, what outlets they’ve used to express this passion, and what personal benefits they get out of creating content.

☛ Why it’s important to ask this: I certainly want a content marketer to have an opinion about what works and what doesn’t work. however, it’s also important that they are able to accept critique about their work and make changes as necessary.
☛ What to look out for: Attention to to detail and an understanding of proper usage of the english language is key elements of quality content. (Did you catch the three mistakes?) Follow-up questions could include:
► What are some of your greatest “pet peeves” when editing someone else’s writing?
► Which style guide(s) do you depend upon?

To excel at providing thorough and enthusiastic customer service, customer service representatives must possess a talent for nurturing strong customer relationships. This question helps you determine whether a candidate enjoys talking to people and if they have the power to boost customer loyalty and engagement.

What to look for in an answer:
☛ Passion for helping people
☛ Energetic personality
☛ Customer-focused

I’m definitely a people person! I love talking to people from different backgrounds, finding out about their lives and helping them find solutions to their problems. I was voted Most Outgoing at my last job and small talk is one of my talents.

It’s important for customer service reps to be empathetic and people-oriented. Good answers might include “I like talking to people and finding out about their lives” or “I love the feeling of helping somebody solve a problem they’re having.”

That would depend on what kind of a rapport I had with him. If I felt comfortable, I would probably mention that being rude is probably going to be bad for him in the long run, since unhappy customers reflect badly on the sales associate. Otherwise, I would mention to the supervisor what I had witnessed and let him handle it.

I'm rather busy with my duties and goals of the Company, as a result, I have not focused much on my long-term personal goals.

List whatever tasks you perform each day. Some of these may be among them:

Answering requests, responding to calls, maintaining and updating records, providing service information, dealing with misapplied payments and billing.

Mention profitable product sales, positive/fruitful customer instruction, customer care with patience and any communication which leads to improved customer service or a sale.

This is number one on my list. You need to be a great writer and editor, highly creative, able to tell a story, and most importantly—love doing content marketing. Although more detailed questions are provided below, you need to understand if your candidate really loves content marketing, and if they will take the initiative to develop and grow in the role.

☛ Why it’s important to ask this: Your content marketer will need to express a unique voice and opinion in their work. However, they also need to adapt their own style as a function of your company’s needs, the audience, format of the content, person they’re writing for, and so on.
☛ What to look out for: Look and ask for specific examples of how they modified their style, as well as asking them to identify why this is important.

Appeasing an irate customer is no easy task, but delighting them can be even more challenging. Ask this question to determine if a candidate is willing to go the extra mile for a customer, even in a tense situation.

What to look for in an answer:
☛ Conflict resolution skills
☛ Stress tolerance and resilience
☛ Ability to abide by company policies

During my previous role, a customer was furious about not being able to return an item for a full refund. Company policy only allowed me to offer the customer store credit since he didn’t have a receipt. After letting him vent, listening intently to his concerns and apologizing for the inconvenience, I helped him find a gift for his wife for the same price so he wasn’t out any money. He thanked me for my patience and told me he would tell his friends about his experience.

Every customer service rep is going to encounter customers who are upset. Great candidates should remain respectful while continuing to provide as high a level of service as possible.

Good customer service reps help customers solve problems, but great customer service reps are proactive about looking for ways to prevent problems from occurring in the first place.

In order to find out what product characteristic or other demands which the customer requests, I make some related questions. It is usually useful to make a conversation, so you can examine any special requests or preferences. Once I receive that information, I will tell the customer some ideas and show how they satisfy the customer's needs. Customers only have lots of information. This information can come to customers from different sources, and it is normally not able to say which product is the one they want. Through the conversation, the customer can express their expectations from the product and up to them, you can give the exact advice.

I build a quick line system, one line will helps anybody with jobs that can be done fast, while the other one for slower moving customer matters. One or two people are appointed to solve the customer's issues. That decreases the numbers and pushes the difficult jobs faster. Quick service should be given to customers. A long waiting line is the good basic for getting complaint. The demand for efficient time frames is realized in the good customer service practice.

Content marketing is the process for developing, executing, and delivering the content and related assets needed to create, nurture and grow a company’s customer base. If you don’t have the capability to understand a market (e.g., be able to listen to customers and influencers, and identify their communicated and latent needs), you simply won’t be able to deliver great, engaging content.

☛ Why it’s important to ask this: Content marketing is about adding value to your readers, such as providing an infographic that educates about their industry, or creating an entertaining video that helps them with their job or career. Your team needs to create content that provides entertainment such as through story-telling or comedy in order to stand out from the crowd, and to capture and sustain their attention.
☛ What to look out for: Look for examples of their content that told a story, used humor, and/or educated their audience about something other than a company’s products. Bonus points if the candidate has delivered more unique formats of content, such as infographics, podcasts or interactive content. Ask for examples of where they’ve used visual content, including why they were or weren’t successful.

Providing exceptional customer service is a team effort that requires constant collaboration to build a strong, positive image of the company. This question will let you know if a candidate is willing to jump in and help their colleagues, and if they have the ability to relay customer feedback effectively to other departments.

What to look for in an answer:
☛ Teamwork abilities
☛ Communication skills
☛ Desire to improve the company

Teamwork is essential for success as a customer service rep. At my last job, I worked closely with a cohesive team. We regularly pooled our knowledge and resources to address tricky customer complaints and handle a large amount of incoming calls during peak times. I also collaborated cross-functionally by collecting customer feedback and communicating it to the product team.

The key here is honesty. Especially if you have a complex product or service, it’s much better for a customer service rep to say “I don’t know, but let me find out,” than to provide potentially inaccurate information.

☛ 1. What does good customer service mean to you?
☛ 2. What appeals to you about this role specifically?
☛ 3. What’s the best customer service you’ve ever received? Why?
☛ 4. Can you tell me about a time you received poor customer service?
☛ 5. Is there a difference between customer service and customer support?
☛ 6. Can you tell me about a time when you were proud of the level of service you gave a customer?
☛ 7. Have you ever dealt with an unreasonable customer? How did you handle it, and how would you handle it today?
☛ 8. Have you ever bent the rules in assisting a customer? Tell me the situation and the outcome.
☛ 9. In your past work, have you ever received negative feedback from a customer? What did you do with that feedback?
☛ 10. Can you tell me about a customer that you found difficult to understand, and how you approached that interaction?
☛ 11. Can you describe a time when you had to say “no” to an important customer’s request?
☛ 12. What’s the best way to help a customer who has worked with multiple agents and hasn’t received the help they need?
☛ 13. Have you had a time when a customer was reporting a technical issue that you didn't know the answer to? What was your approach, and how did it end up?
☛ 14. Can you tell me about a situation with a customer when there wasn’t a clear policy to use, and you needed to make a judgement call? How did you approach your decision, and what happened?
☛ 15. Can you give me an example of a situation where there were major problems with your product/service, and you needed to respond without having all the answers yet?
☛ 16. Can you give an example of how you handled alerting a customer when your product/service caused a major problem?
☛ 17. When responding to a customer, how do you decide what information to include, and what to leave out?
☛ 18. Can you tell me about a time when you needed to convince a customer or a teammate to change the way they were working (e.g., adopt a new procedure or modify their language), and how you went about that?
☛ 19. What’s the last new skill you learned? Why did you choose that skill, and how did you learn it?
☛ 20. Can you tell me about a time when you made a great contribution to your team?
☛ 21. What’s the next book I should read? Why?
☛ 22. What are you better at today than you were this time last year?
☛ 23. What do you think makes a good teammate?

☛ What would you do if you were on the phone with a dissatisfied client and didn’t know how to answer their question?
☛ How would you reply to an angry customer who wants to speak with your manager?
☛ How would you respond to a client who complains that the product is too expensive and asks for a discount?
☛ How would you handle multiple calls and emails from customers about a system failure that was due to a technical issue beyond our control?

☛ How many customers do you usually talk to daily?
☛ Are you familiar with our products/services? What do you think are the most common issues we face with clients?
☛ How do you communicate customer comments to internal teams (e.g. Marketing and Product)?
☛ Are you familiar with CRM software? What tools do you use on the job?
☛ Do you use social media and forums to contact customers and answer their queries? If so, what are the basic rules of effective online communication?

☛ How do you work with targets? What’s your track record of achieving quotas?
☛ What do you find interesting about the customer care sector? Why did you choose this career?
☛ How do you prefer to contact clients: in-person, via email or on the phone? Why?
☛ Describe a time you turned a negative situation with a customer into a positive one.
☛ Do you prefer individual or team goals? Why?

This might sound like a trick question, but it isn’t. A great candidate should feel comfortable talking about their experience using your product or service, and pointing out places where their experience could have been improved.