General Interview Questions!

Regardless of the industry or job title, all job seekers will likely encounter the following interview
questions:

1. Tell me about yourself.

Goodmorning maam/sir. I'm Irene Sayre Millano a fresh graduate from Bicol University with the degree
of bachelor of Science in Managerial Accounting. I recently worked at MCMI as an accounting clerk.In my
previous Job, I was responsible for keeping the financial record updated, preparing reports and also
running accounting softwares in processing business transactions. My hobbies are travelling, reading,
watching movies and spending my leisure time with my friends and my family.

This question is usually the opening ice-breaker. Take this time to highlight your accomplishments,
strengths and previous job experience, while also mapping them to some of the specific desired
qualifications outlined in the job description.

Be professional, but also show some personality. Beyond your experience and skills, interviewers are also
trying to determine if you’ll be a good cultural fit.

2. Why did you leave your last job?

I had great working experience in my previous Job as it helps me develop my skills and capabilities.
However, I wanted a new opportunity where I could learn new things, grow my career and also where I
could work more directly with people.

I wanted to find something more challenging where I could perfect and develop new skills.

3. Why do you want to work for our company?

- During my research, I discovered that your company really values training and ongoing learning for your
employees, and as someone who loves to learn new things and be challenged, this is important to me.

4. What are your strengths ?

I'm a quick learner, I can work without supervion

- One of my greatest strengths is my ability to learn fast on the job and teach myself different skillsets.
And while I don’t have much experience in customer service, I think my ability to learn will help me
overcome that obstacle quickly.

* I can consider myself as a quick learner, who always want to learn everything for a particular job or for
a particular position.

*I consider myself as a highly ambitious, hardworking, quick learner & self-motivated person which I
believe are the essential qualities that anyone who wants to succeed in professional life.

*My strengths are that I can work with no supervision, I love working pressure, I can adjust with any
working environment, I have a good time management and see to it that I have a good working
relationship towards my customers, coworkers and the management as well.

*I am very patient person capable of dealing with irate and demanding customer. I can think out of box, I
have good communication skills and I can learn how to operate new computer programs very fast. I am a
team player and I can get along with people very well.

WEAKNESS?

-Sometimes I over control things because I want everything to be in perfection but I know not everytime
this will be possible so I'm learning to adjust my expectations but not my standards of my performance.

6. What’s your idea of a call center?

You should also pay special attention to what kind of call center you are applying for. Inbound call centers
field the customer calls placed towards a business and your time will be spent addressing customer
questions and concerns. Whereas in outbound call centers, you will be responsible for dialing customers
and prospects to collect survey responses, schedule sales demonstrations, perform telemarketing, and
more.
To me, a customer service call center is the frontline of all customer interactions. It’s the job of call
center agents to listen and understand customer concerns while also providing helpful information. At
the end of the day, customer service call centers need to create satisfied customers with every call.

*My idea of a call center is that it is a place where people take calls from customers and deliver superb
customer service experience.

*“As what I’ve researched online, a call center is where call center agents either make or receive phone
calls to answer customer’s questions about products and services or to sell something and conducts
surveys.”

“Before I decided to apply, I researched the employees’ job description in a contact center and I found
out that a contact center is where you handle calls, emails and chats to answer customer’s questions or
resolve customer concerns"

7. Why do you want to work in a call center?

- I’m excited to work in a fast-paced environment that will challenge me to use all of my skills to solve
problems and improve the customer experience. I love flexing my communication skills and interacting
with customers.

I'd like to work in a call center because I believe that I have the skills to match the ones needed for this
job. BPO is the best industry where I can showcase my skills and ability. A platform that gave equal
opportunities for graduates ,undergraduates and even young and old people. An industry where I find no
discrimination and addresses everyone's talents and characteristics. I'm pretty sure to myself I'll be
proud to be a member of the family.

“I want to work in a call center because of two reasons:

First, because Call Center provides tremendous career growth opportunities. Here you can climb the
ladder of success for it provides training and avenue for growth to employees.

Second, because Call Center provides avenue to master communication skills and to develop skill-set
further. One of my goals is to develop my English communication skills to the fullest potential and I can’t
see any better way to reach this goal than to work in a call center."
8. What is your idea of quality customer service?

My idea of quality customer service is being able to provide customers with friendly, professional
service that not only solves their problems or answers their questions, but also leaves them feeling
satisfied with the service they received.

9. How would you handle a call from an angry/irate customer?

- I think the first step is to stay calm and express to the customer that you understand them. I think it’s
also important to remember that it isn’t personal, and the best way to de-escalate the situation is to
work towards a solution.

-Well, I think the best way for me to do to handle an IRATE CUSTOMER is to focus on providing quality
service by letting the customer vent out or rant their frustrations. Second is sympathizing with their
concerns. And last, provide or present a viable solution to their problem and give them an assurance that
their problem will be resolved in no time.

10. Are you able to work with multiple phone lines?

- While I haven’t worked in a call center previously, I have juggled customer service while I was working
in retail. Handling multiple customer returns each day involved a lot of multitasking with our inventory
system, communicating with the customer, and accessing our POS system.

11.What is Customer Service?

-Customer Service is the way of doing the best & excellent which us above the expectation of someone
just to meet the satisfaction of the customers regarding to their concerns and giving the best solution to
the customer's complain.

-It is the act of taking care of the customer's need by delivering professional, helpful, high quality service
and assistance to them.
*There are many components to customer service, and you need all of them to truly satisfy customers.
Customer service involves being a kind, courteous, and professional face for the company. It also involves
listening carefully to customer wants and concerns. Beyond listening, customer service is doing
everything in one’s power to efficiently and accurately serve each customer. Finally, customer service is
clearly explaining solutions to clients. All of these components of customer service lead to happy and
loyal customers, which I know is the ultimate goal of your company.

12. What do you understand by EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE?

-An excellent customer service is providing brilliant solution and exceeding the customer satisfaction.
Going extra mile in assisting customer is a plus to keep them coming back. I make sure that all of my
caller's concerns are resolved on their first call by doing things right.

13. What makes you qualified to work in a call center?

-Well, I can say that I am qualified to work in a call center because I possess a qualities which makes one
a good call center agent. I am very flexible; I don't have complaints with shift work or working at nights
and with split days off. I am willing to learn, and I am not intimidated with learning new things. I am very
patient and I know how to deal with stress. I believe that these qualities makes me qualified to work in a
call center.

14. How to handle stress?

- Stress and pressure are always present in any kind of field we choose in life but what we can do to
handle this is to set up and focus our minds into a goal that we can be benefited. We will be inspired to
achieve anything and let nothing stop us.

15. How do you keep yourself motivated?

-Every customer is different and their situation unique. Although the job may seem similar on a day-by-
day basis, every call presents an opportunity for you to shine and personally make the difference to the
next customers. Employers know that nobody can maintain their top level of motivation around the
clock, and they don't want to hear that you are always perfect. What will interest them are the strategies
you have come up with to recognise when your energy is dropping and bring yourself back around.

16. How do you see yourself five years from now?

-I am definitely interested in making long term commitment to my next position. Well, I see myself five
years from now still working in this company with higher position at the same time with higher salary. I
believe that if I do my work with excellence, future opportunities will inevitable to open up for me. I
mean if I perform my job at hand ,future opportunities will take good care of themselves.

17. How can you defend your LOYALTY?

-I know that I will stay long in this company if fortunately you'll hire me. I've given effort and time to
apply and I will never waste the chance. This company (name of the company) who will give me trust to
be part of the team is worth a hundreds of company who can give me job offers without the security
that they will also be loyal to me.

18. What is your edge among the other applicants?

-Everybody have their own edges & characteristics but what I can offer is the heart ,the heart that gives
excellent service, appreciate the opportunity you gave, care for everyone's welfare & goal motivated for
our progress in my personal as well as the company.

19. How would you describe color red to a blind person?

-Describing the physical appearance of color red to a blind person will be useless so I will use my
emotional perspective towards it. I see red as a color that symbolizes love, adore and passion. For
some ,red is hot and vibrant and for some is sweet and fragrance.
20. Explain how you handle negative feedback from angry clients.

-To handle negative feedback from angry clients is to always think positive and take those negative
feedback as motivation to do better and to improve the services you provide and will effectively lessen
bad calls.

21. Why should we hire you?

"You should hire me for the following reasons,

Firstly, I know that if I’ll have the opportunity to work for this company I’ll be giving my very best.
Certainly, I will not have problem with my attendance and will be performing well.

Secondly, I am a person with a good work principle. I give my best effort to achieve quality result.

Lastly, I am fit for this job because I have the basic skills needed to perform Customer Service tasks or
responsibilities

22. What is good customer service?

•Good customer service means helping customers efficiently, in a friendly manner. It’s essential to be
able to handle issues for customers and do your best to ensure they are satisfied. Providing good service
is one of the most important things that can set your business apart from the others of its kind.

•Good customer service involves giving customers a good first impression of the business, with a friendly
greeting and helpful attitude, as well as a good lasting impression. Determining the customer's needs
and solving problems quickly will lead to satisfied or happy customers.

23. Are you comfortable with night shifts?

24. How you rate yourself on communication skills?

25. What is the key to success in a call center?

A call center is all about providing quality service to customer. If you are good at handling customer well
and offering a good service then you can be successful in call center.

26) While talking to customer, what are the procedures you follow?

First, we should Greet Customer. Next step is to Introduce yourself to customer. Then Ask customer how
you can be helpful to him/her. Listen to the customer patiently and try to help the customer with best
possible solution . Lastly, cross check with the customer if he/she is satisfied with the solution and make
sure whether customer need any further assistance

27) Do you enjoy working in a team?

28) What is virtual call center?

Virtual call center provides a technology or software service, through which the customer associate or
agent can connect to their customer from any location. This technology involves host server and the
equipments to run the call center. This service is rendered on monthly or annual subscription. Agents can
connect to the host server and can get access to the customer data. The benefit of virtual call center is
that you can work from home.

29) Do you like multi-tasking or you prefer to tackle one problem at a time?

Depending on the situation, I could do multi-tasking or could tackle one problem at a time. But multi-
tasking always has the upper hand because it increases your efficiency at the call center.

30) What if the customer is not happy with your answer or solution?

If the customer is not happy with the answer or solution, then I will ask customer to hold the line and
pass on the call to supervisor or a team leader.

31) To improve customer service what will be your approach?

To improve customer service, my approach would be to take feedbacks from the customer and ask them
how we can improve in solving their problem and render them a good service.
32) What will you do in a situation where system shuts down and you still handling customer on the
phone?

In the middle of handling phone, if the system crashes then I will ask the customer to hold for some time
till I get a power back up and if not then try to resolve his/her problem with my knowledge. The best
thing in such situation is to ask the customer to call back or note his contact details so you can call once
the system is back.

33) Mention what are the key attributes of a call center executive?

The key attributes of a call center executive are

Friendly attitude

Ask the right questions

Accurate answers to the customer query

Professional phone relationship

Be the face of the organization

View a customer’s complaint as an opportunity to gain the customer’s respect

Resolve complaints patiently

34) How to deal with the difficult customer?

To deal with a difficult customer you need to do following things

Listen to customer actively

Rephrase their concerns

Present a viable solution

Take action and follow up

Fix the problem at hand immediately

Use the feedback

Reduce the unpleasant situation happen again with customer

35) Mention how do you measure – good customer service?

Good customer service can be measured on following basis,

Number of repeat customers

Number and type of customer complaints received

Number of referrals given by current customers

Sales figure if service is product based

Customer satisfaction surveys

Benchmarking service with competitors

Rate at which number of customers enrolled to your service

Number of returns

36) Explain how can you turn down a request from a valued client?

To turn down a request from a valued client, you have to

Remain polite and well mannered

Adhere to company’s policies

Explain the situation or reason for denial

Try to remain reliable to customer

37. How you rate yourself on communication skills?

I rate myself 8 out of 10 because I firmly believed that I have good communication skills and i can
express and deliver my thoughts clearly although I'm not that fluent in speaking English.

SITUATIONAL QUESTIONS

What would you do if you have a rude boss or colleague who’s affecting your productivity at work?”

“I would personally talk to him/ her and try to work out our misunderstandings. I’d say, ‘Hey, I’d like to
talk to you about yesterday. When you said “I’m dumb” because I wasn’t able to calm the customer
down, I was honestly hurt. I’d like to explain and make you understand what really happened…
If we can’t work things out, then I will bring it up to another higher person who could take care of the
situation. If I’m having issues with him/ her, chances are, I’m not the only one. There could be others
who felt the same but just didn’t have the courage to speak up.”

This way, everyone in the office could harmoniously work together instead of emotionally taxing
themselves on unnecessary issues.”

+ What are your strengths and weakness?

+ What are your short and long term goal?

+ What motivates you to work?

+ What can you contribute to this company?

+ What are the characteristics or skills that you have that make you a perfect fit for this job?