20 Interview Questions for Call Center Candidates

Virtually every business depends on call center staff to handle their customer service demands, yet ensuring the excellence of your call center team when hiring new team members isn’t always easy. It can be tough to find enough time in the day to interview every applicant that lands on your desk.

That’s why it’s important to make sure you’re asking the hard-hitting call center candidate interview questions right off the bat.

Here’s a list of our top 20 interview questions to ask call center candidates, broken down by category and skillset.

The Best Call Center Interview Questions

Interview Questions to Assess Soft Skills

Call center employees are often your customers’ first interactions with your company if there’s an issue. You’ll want to make sure the people you hire to man the phones have top-notch soft skills, which include communication, customer satisfaction, and empathy.

Customer-centric approach: These call center interview questions will help you gauge how a candidate prioritizes the customers’ needs. They can also help you gain insight into how the candidate will respond to a stressful customer interaction.

Please provide me with an example of a situation where you faced a difficult customer interaction and explain how you were able to turn it around.
How do you handle challenging customer interactions?
Please explain how you put the customer first in every interaction you have.

Communication skills: These questions will help you check up on the candidate’s communication skills.

Please tell me about a time when you had to explain a complicated process or matter to a customer. How did you ensure that they actually understood the information?
How do you alter your communication style to meet the needs of each unique customer?

Empathy and active listening skills: These questions will help you assess a candidate’s ability to empathize with customers.

Can you please give me an example of how you assure customers that you’re actively listening to them while they’re airing their grievances?
How do you handle a frustrated or disappointed customer?

Interview Questions on Problem-Solving

Call center employees need to quickly triage customer calls and needs. In most cases, they’ll need to do so with little supervision or assistance. Consequently, they’ll need to have solid problem-solving capabilities to succeed in their role. Here are a few call center interview questions that can help you gauge this skill:

Please tell me about a time when you had to think on your feet to help a customer resolve their issue. What did you do, and what was the outcome?
How do you help customers solve problems when you’re not provided with much information?
How do you handle solving a problem that requires a higher level of expertise that you cannot access while the customer is on the phone?

Interview Questions on Teamwork

Call centers aren’t operating in a vacuum but rather as a part of the overall machine that is an organization. This means that a successful call center team member is someone who prioritizes the team’s needs and works with their peers to accomplish the meeting. These questions help you assess whether a candidate is a team player.

How do you ensure consistent communication with your team?
How do you prioritize the needs of the team while working individually on customer calls?
Please tell me about a time when you had to work with your team members to resolve a customer’s issue.
How do you work in a team-focused environment amidst a high workload and call volume?
How do you contribute to creating a collaborative work culture within your team?
In a team setting, how do you ensure open communication and resolve conflicts that may arise?
Provide an example of how you collaborated with another department to solve a customer issue.

Interview Questions on Adaptability

Call center teams’ days are often dictated by the calls they receive. As such, this means that a successful call center team member is someone who can adapt to the changing demands throughout the course of the day. These questions can help you ascertain whether a candidate thrives or locks up when faced with uncertainty.

Please provide an example of a situation where you had to adapt quickly to a change in processes or procedures.
How do you stay focused in a high-pressure, fast-paced work environment?
Tell me about a time when you had to drop what you were doing to respond to a customer. How did you ensure the customer’s needs were met and that the prior task was completed?

Find the Right Call Center Candidates

Finding top talent—especially for your customer-facing roles—is crucial. By asking pointed call center interview questions, you can quickly narrow your candidate pool and effectively assess their skills!