competency based interviews, typical questions for customer services / sales jobs?

[sweettraveltrudy]

I have an interview coming up and its a competency based interview,

What typical questions for customer services / sales roles should I expect and how should I answer them??

Any help appreciated thanks

[johnny c]

A competentcy-based interview requires you to give situations where you have exhibited the competencies they require.

Look at the job spec, identify what they consider the core competencies of the job and think of situations where you have displayed them.

For example, for the type of role you mention, they may have 'Ability to deal with difficult customers'. They may ask you to describe a situation where you dealt with a tricky customer. You'll need to tell them what the situation was, how you handled it, what difficulties you overcame and what the result was. So think of the best situations; don't tell them about a time when a customer pohoned up, swore at you for 10 mins and then slammed the phone down. You'd pick a time when an angry customer phoned up, you calmed them down, looked at their problem in detail and sorted it out for them. Maybe you had to do some extra work on the customers account, so you told them you'd sort it out and ring back within an hour and you did so.

If you haven't had a situation they ask for, you can lie, but chances are theyll trip you up if they're any good, so it's best to be honest, say you haven't had to deal with that situation, but tell them how you would handle it if it arose.

There are plenty of online resources explaining competency-based interviews, do a google.

Good luck! They're not nice interviews, you tend to come out feeling a bit bruised. But don't worry - if you don't come out feeling like that, you probably missed the point of their questions.