When It Came to Recruiting Customer Assistants for the New

Recruitment | Psychology

When it came to recruiting Customer Assistants for the New Routemasters, London United opted to bring in psychologists to help identify candidates with good customer skills. OPC Assessment helped with psychometric tests, an approach that could grow

Selecting the right people is a vital assessment centre was working. The deciding factor for the success of any psychologists took a closer look at organisation. For many industries, how applicants performed on each teaming up with psychologists to assessment tool at the assessment design a recruitment process is centre, and how they performed on second nature; however, this is not the job. commonplace in the bus industry. The analysis revealed that those London United Busways has who performed really well on the shaken things up by teaming up with assessment tools equally performed a leading provider of psychometric really well on the job, including tests, OPC Assessment, to help punctuality and customer service. It recruit its Customer Assistants for the became apparent that through this New Routemaster buses in London. combination of customer-specific The Customer Assistants’ role on psychometric tests, a customer- the New Routemaster is like no other. orientated group exercise and Their role is not to check tickets, but a competency-based interview, rather assist tourists around London. London United was able to run A great deal of travel knowledge on an efficient and effective selection tourist sights and transport links process and recruit high-performing around London is necessary, but to employees. make sure it is a pleasant journey for all also requires great customer service Leading the way forward skills. London United has been really This is where the psychologists impressed with its assessment centre. come in. OPC Assessment “With so many applicants for the role, Psychologists helped London it really helped us identify candidates United select some off-the-shelf practical and reliable measure of with outstanding customer skills,” psychometric tests to match the how someone would respond and says the company. requirements of the new Customer interact when dealing with a range of It has also received recognition Assistant role, which were then used customer interactions. from Transport for London (TfL) for as part of an ‘assessment centre’. ‘Those who The in-house group exercise was selecting quality Customer Assistants. performed used to give applicants a chance to The innovative approach has given Assessment centre well on the express themselves. This was followed London United an effective tool for Great customer service on the New assessment by a competency-based interview recruiting the right people for the Routemaster would involve the performed well designed to give additional insight role. Customer Assistant dealing with on the job’ into particular competencies around London United was so pleased novel and unexpected situations every customer orientation – essential to with the success of its selection day. To measure how they would the Customer Assistant role. The process that earlier this year it used respond in such situations, applicants first series of assessment centres were the same assessment centre to recruit first completed two customer-based run by London United in-house, 48 more Customer Assistants for psychometric tools, then an in- drawing on the expert skills of its own another New Routemaster route. house group exercise, and finally a assessors and managers. Running formal assessment centres competency-based interview. From these centres, more than 50 for employees in the bus industry The two psychometric exercises Customer Assistants were recruited is not the norm. However, London were developed by OPC Assessment in 2013. United, with support from OPC primarily for customer service roles: Assessment has shown that these the Customer Service Situations It really worked can work really effectively in the bus (CSS) and Customer Service Role Once the new recruits were in place, industry. This promising move is just Play (CSRP) exercise. These exercises OPC Assessment worked with the beginning for London United’s allowed London United to gain a London United to find out if the future recruitment efforts.