Healthcare Customer Service Representatives Challenge: Hogan worked with customer service representatives (CSRs) from a leading healthcare company. CSRs interact with customers to provide information in response to questions about health-related products and services and to handle and resolve complaints. Solution: Over 250 CSRs completed the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), a well-known measure of normal personality characteristics. Based on the HPI results, Hogan calculated scores for the Hogan Advantage (HA), which provides information on three personality characteristics that drive success in entry-level jobs – (a) Composure, (b) Customer Focus, and (c) Dependability. Composure assesses the degree to which an individual remains calm and even-tempered when faced with stress whereas Dependability measures a person’s tendency to act in a reliable manner. Customer Focus refers to how polite, helpful, and friendly one acts when interacting with customers. Supervisors rated the CSRs on several performance dimensions including customer service, flexibility, attitude, and overall performance. Hogan then analyzed the data to determine how well the three personality characteristics predicted CSR performance. Result: We found that the Composure and Customer Focus scales were the strongest drivers of CSR performance. Specifically, we found the following: Individuals who interact in a positive manner with customers (above average or high Customer Focus scores) were more than twice as likely to be rated as a strong performer than CSRs who tend to be irritable or abrupt when dealing with customers (average, below average, or low Customer Focus scores). Figure 2. High vs. Low Composure Figure 1. High vs. Low Customer Focus CSRs who tend to remain steady and calm (above average or high Composure scores) were almost three times more likely to be rated as a high performer than those who tend to panic during stressful situations (average, below average, or low Composure scores). Overall Performance Overall Performance 3X more likely to be strong performer 2X more likely to be strong performer www.mentisglobal.com Distributed by Mentis [email protected]