Customer Service Valley launches new campaign

Customer Service Valley is starting the 'Happy Agent campaign (www.happyagent.nl) with the goal of recruiting new agents for customer contact centres in South Limburg and showing that this field is a true profession. The campaign, which is being launched this week, will primarily focus on online outlets, although some print media, such as posters at bus shelters, will also be used.

Research indicates that many people have a poor understanding of what customer contact centre work entails. People often think that customer contact centre employees call consumers in order to sell them a product or service, usually around dinnertime. Of course the consumers themselves don't appreciate these calls, but the people doing the calling don't usually enjoy this kind of work (known as 'outbound calling') either. But a job as a customer service employee is very different. The goal of this job is to help consumers by offering a solution to their problem. In part because of the increasing digitization of society and the rise of internet shopping, customer contact centres are gaining in importance and make a big difference to the image of a company or brand. The customer contact centre agent is the company's calling card. For this reason, more and more companies with a customer contact centre are looking for high-quality employees. One way they ensure the quality of their employees is by implementing a careful selection procedure. Customer Service Valley's selection procedure is the CSV TalentPitch, a digital application tool which all candidates must undergo. The test consists of questions and practical exercises and takes 90 minutes.

The use of the CSV TalentPitch has demonstrably resulted in less employee turnover, longer employment duration, and more satisfaction in the workplace. Employees are better prepared for the actual working conditions and employers have better, more qualified staff. For this reason, the Happy Agent campaign places a great deal of emphasis on the CSV TalentPitch. It also improves its results as more people take the test. The primary goal of Customer Service Valley is to expand the number of available jobs from 5,000 to 6,000 over the next three years.

Customer Service Valley is a collaborative effort among Vodafone, Q-Park, arvato Bertelsmann, the Municipality of Maastricht, and the educational institutes Arcus College Regional Training Centre, Leeuwenborgh Regional Training Centre, and Zuyd University of Applied Sciences. This collaboration aims to strengthen South Limburg's position as a customer service region through training programmes, knowledge exchange, innovation, and the further professionalization of the customer service field.