Would you be expect to be served at a pet shop by people who don’t care about animals? What about at a book shop by someone who hasn’t read a book for a year?

It may seem like such obvious advice to give, but do your customer service recruitment efforts focus on finding people who are actually passionate about customer service?

Customer service also isn’t just important in one industry – it’s important in every industry, which is why finding someone who is passionate about it is so crucial.

As we say, it’s obvious advice to give in some ways, but it makes an immense difference. With your customer service staff, it is especially important advice, given that these guys and gals are at the front line of your company.

Customer service recruits – what to look for

Great customer service staff will often show their credentials in this line of work at an early stage of life, and in so many different aspects of their lives. They’re ‘helper’ types – the sort of person who assisted their older sibling with their school homework, or who were always the first to suggest that they babysit.

Today, such an individual is likely to continue exhibiting helpful traits, perhaps through volunteering for charitable causes or just making themselves available for a friend in need.

Look for these kinds of people when you are next hiring customer service employees… the people who are actively engaged, who don’t just treat your customers as a number and who make customers feel important and listened to.

Why enthusiasm matters so much

The right customer service personnel intuitively create that connection, creating relationships and sustaining loyalty. Human beings look for passion in others, and when they find it, they appreciate it and repay that passion in turn.

Customer service isn’t one of those disciplines that can be learned by rote from a book or instruction manual. It’s a job that you need a genuinely welcoming and helpful person to do. If your customers don’t perceive your customer service staff as welcoming and helpful, they’ll have the same perception of your entire company.

Beyond just that, though, your customers want a human connection.

That’s why, when you next launch a customer service recruitment campaign, only the most genuinely caring and enthusiastic candidates should be hired.

They’ll add immensely to your firm’s bottom line – whatever its sector.