SACS at Work

Pre Employment Screening Boosts Utility's People Power

Washington state's leading energy utility provides electricity, natural gas and a full range of services homes and businesses. Headquartered in the heart of a major technology corridor, the company's workforce serves over 1.4 million customers in a dynamic area that includes many large Fortune 500 companies.

It's no surprise that the utility prides itself on providing exceptional customer care via the call center. Of course, the process of hiring and keeping qualified customer care agents is essential to fulfilling this commitment.

Setting the Standards for Excellence

In 2001, the utility contracted Select International as its call center consultant to create an accurate pre employment screening system. The solution would have to identify and assess Customer Service Representative and Customer Service Clerk candidates who possessed the necessary skills, abilities and personal motivations needed for successful integration into one of the utility's major call centers.

Within the call center environment, customer service agents had to quickly help customers not only during regular business hours, but also during natural gas and electric related emergencies or outages. The call center is open 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. Customers speaking any of 20 languages have come to expect fast, expert assistance. That's because agents can access customer information - before a conversation begins - based on the incoming telephone number. Information such as ongoing energy usage and payment history quickly appears on agents' screens so customers do not waste time waiting.

Plugged In to Electrifying Call Center Software

Following an on-site tour and in-depth job analysis, Select customized the scoring profile of is call center software tool - Select Assessment for Customer Service (SACS). The profile was based on the specifics of the utility's call center environment, such as the aforementioned job duties.

In addition to adding SACS to the utility's hiring process, Select also implemented the EZ App® toll-free application line and designed a customized "Personal Preferences Questionnaire" in order to screen all candidates for job fit/motivation.

With its new pre employment screening tools, the utility was able to efficiently screen over 1,200 call center applications and hundreds of interviewees during a two-year period. SACS, in particular, generated immediate results: Human resources personnel were able to conduct same-day follow-up interviews, greatly reducing the time needed to fill open positions.

Since the inception of Select's screening and assessment project, the utility has continually filled all customer care agent positions using SACS and the Select hiring process. More importantly, it has continually fulfilled its commitment to excellent customer service.

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