End Hiring Nice People for Customer Service: The Reason Character Beats Agreeableness Every Time
Let me tell you something that will probably annoy every recruitment manager who encounters this: selecting people for customer service due to how “pleasant” they appear in an meeting is among of the biggest blunders you can do.
Agreeable turns you minimal results when someone is yelling at you about a issue that is not your doing, insisting on solutions that do not exist, and threatening to damage your business on the internet.
The thing that works in those situations is strength, calm standard-maintaining, and the skill to keep focused on solutions rather than emotions.
We discovered this reality the difficult way while working with a large retail chain in Melbourne. Their hiring process was totally based on identifying “service-minded” applicants who were “genuinely friendly” and “thrived on helping people.”
Seems logical, right?
The consequence: astronomical turnover, constant sick leave, and customer quality that was consistently subpar.
When I examined what was occurring, I learned that their “agreeable” staff were being totally overwhelmed by challenging people.
These people had been recruited for their genuine compassion and need to assist others, but they had zero tools or built-in defenses against absorbing every client’s difficult energy.
Additionally, their genuine inclination to satisfy people meant they were continuously agreeing to expectations they couldn’t deliver, which resulted in even greater upset clients and additional anxiety for themselves.
We observed genuinely compassionate individuals leave in short periods because they were unable to cope with the emotional toll of the role.
Simultaneously, the small number of employees who performed well in challenging customer service environments had totally distinct traits.
These people weren’t particularly “nice” in the traditional sense. Instead, they were strong, self-assured, and comfortable with setting boundaries. They really wanted to help people, but they furthermore had the strength to communicate “no” when necessary.
Those employees could recognize a person’s frustration without taking it personally. They were able to stay calm when clients got abusive. They could focus on discovering realistic fixes rather than being involved in dramatic conflicts.
Such traits had little to do with being “nice” and much to do with psychological intelligence, internal confidence, and resilience.
We entirely redesigned their recruitment approach. In place of looking for “nice” people, we began testing for emotional strength, solution-finding capacity, and ease with boundary-setting.
During assessments, we offered candidates with actual support situations: angry clients, unreasonable requests, and situations where there was no perfect solution.
Instead of asking how they would make the customer satisfied, we questioned how they would navigate the encounter professionally while maintaining their own mental health and enforcing business policies.
This people who performed excellently in these assessments were rarely the ones who had originally appeared most “nice.”
Rather, they were the ones who demonstrated logical analysis under pressure, confidence with saying “that’s not possible” when required, and the skill to separate their individual reactions from the client’s emotional condition.
180 days after introducing this new recruitment strategy, staff retention decreased by nearly three-fifths. Client experience rose remarkably, but even more significantly, satisfaction particularly for difficult service situations improved significantly.
This is why this approach is effective: client relations is basically about solution-finding under challenging conditions, not about being constantly liked.
People who call customer service are generally previously upset. They have a concern they can’t solve themselves, they’ve often beforehand attempted various solutions, and they require competent help, not superficial niceness.
What frustrated people genuinely require is a representative who:
Acknowledges their issue promptly and correctly
Exhibits authentic ability in grasping and resolving their issue
Gives clear details about what is possible to and will not be accomplished
Accepts suitable action quickly and follows through on agreements
Keeps composed behavior even when the client becomes difficult
See that “being nice” isn’t feature anywhere on that list.
Competence, appropriate behavior, and consistency are important significantly more than agreeableness.
Actually, excessive agreeableness can often be counterproductive in support encounters. When people are really frustrated about a serious issue, inappropriately cheerful or energetic behavior can seem as uncaring, fake, or out of touch.
I consulted with a banking company company where customer service staff had been trained to continuously display “cheerful demeanor” no matter what of the person’s emotional state.
Such an approach functioned fairly well for standard inquiries, but it was completely unsuitable for significant issues.
When customers reached out because they’d lost significant amounts of money due to processing errors, or because they were dealing with financial crisis and needed to discuss assistance alternatives, artificially cheerful behavior came across as insensitive and inappropriate.
I re-educated their staff to align their interpersonal style to the seriousness of the customer’s situation. Significant concerns needed professional, competent responses, not inappropriate cheerfulness.
Client experience improved right away, particularly for complex situations. Clients sensed that their problems were being handled with proper attention and that the representatives helping them were competent experts rather than simply “nice” individuals.
That leads me to a different significant consideration: the distinction between understanding and psychological taking on.
Good customer service representatives must have empathy – the capacity to acknowledge and validate other individual’s emotional states and perspectives.
But they definitely do not should have to internalize those feelings as their own.
Psychological internalization is what happens when support representatives commence experiencing the same anger, stress, or hopelessness that their customers are feeling.
This psychological internalization is extremely exhausting and results to mental exhaustion, poor performance, and problematic turnover.
Professional empathy, on the other hand, allows people to understand and attend to customers’ psychological needs without accepting ownership for fixing the customer’s emotional state.
This difference is vital for protecting both job performance and mental stability.
So, what should you search for when selecting support representatives?
First, mental competence and resilience. Look for individuals who can stay stable under pressure, who don’t make person upset personally, and who can separate their own reactions from someone else’s people’s psychological states.
Additionally, solution-finding skills. Client relations is fundamentally about understanding challenges and creating effective resolutions. Screen for individuals who handle challenges methodically and who can analyze clearly even when interacting with frustrated people.
Furthermore, confidence with limit-establishing. Look for people who can say “no” professionally but definitively when required, and who appreciate the gap between remaining accommodating and being manipulated.
Next, authentic curiosity in helping people rather than just “pleasing people.” The best client relations staff are motivated by the mental satisfaction of resolving difficult problems, not just by a need to be liked.
Lastly, professional confidence and self-respect. Customer service people who value themselves and their work competence are much superior at preserving healthy interactions with customers and providing consistently high-quality service.
Don’t forget: you’re not hiring candidates to be customer service companions or psychological therapy counselors. You’re selecting professional service providers who can deliver high-quality service while protecting their own mental health and enforcing reasonable standards.
Select for skill, strength, and work quality. Agreeableness is secondary. Service excellence is crucial.
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