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  • 7 Amazing Sample Answers to “What Makes You Unique?”

    The interview question, “What makes you unique?” is not an opportunity to confess weird habits or odd quirks. It’s a chance to provide the interviewer with insight into how you’d be the best candidate for a role, while proving you’re someone who can think on her feet.
    Essentially, “What makes you unique” really means, “What makes you an exceptionally good candidate?”
    To avoid an awkward conversation, you’ll want to be prepared to answer “What makes you unique?” in an interview. Here are seven sample answers to ensure you’re proving yourself an incredibly valuable company asset.

    How to answer “What makes you unique?”

    Mention skills listed in the job description.
    Provide examples from your background. Reference prior accomplishments or results from past roles.
    Avoid generic phrases like “I’m a hard worker”. Make your answer compelling.
    Include key personality traits that will allow you to deliver similar results in the future.
    Tell the interviewer how your unique skills will help the company succeed.

    7 Sample Answers to “What Makes You Unique?” and Why They Work
    1. “I am a very good communicator and find it’s easy for me to relate to other people.”
    Consider mentioning a personality trait you feel would be a good fit for the business. After reading the job description, make a list of attributes that could make you an exceptional candidate.
    Additionally, including a personality trait in your answer allows you to display how you’re a good fit for a role in which you have little prior experience.
    For instance, if you’re applying for a position as a team leader, it’s critical that you demonstrate strong communication skills and an ability to connect with a diverse group of people. If you tell the interviewer, “I am a very good communicator and find it’s easy for me to relate to other people”, you’re able to match your personality to components of a successful leader.
    Effective communication is a critical trait to emphasize in interviews — if you consider how 86% of employees cite lack of collaboration as a main component of workplace failures, you can begin to appreciate why effective communication is so important. 
    2. “I really enjoy learning new things and am constantly seeking out new learning opportunities.”
    By mentioning your passion for learning new things, you’re demonstrating you’re growth-focused and unafraid of challenges.
    Additionally, answering the question in this way allows you to remind the interviewer why you’re uniquely qualified for the role — while other candidates might have more prior experience in the industry, you’re proving your desire to exceed expectations of the job quickly.

    3. “My prior experience in customer service has provided me with unique technical skills that I can apply to this role.”
    If you have prior experience in a role vastly different from the one for which you’re applying, you might use this as an opportunity to explain how your background uniquely qualifies you. With an answer like this one, you’re able to alleviate concerns the interviewer might have with your lack of experience in the field.
    It’s critical, however, that you provide specific examples of how your prior experience has provided you with certain transferrable skills.
    For instance, you might say, “My prior experience in customer service provided me with technical skills and an extensive knowledge base for how our product works. As a marketer, I will be able to use this knowledge to ensure we’re meeting our customers needs with every campaign we launch.”
    It’s also important to highlight: Previous job experience has declined in importance when it comes to recruiters evaluating candidates. In fact, between 2017 and 2021, that number has dropped from 92% to 62%. So it’s okay if you feel your prior work experience doesn’t perfectly align with the role for which you’re applying, as long as you can explain how your skills will help you succeed. 

    4. “Working at a startup gave me an opportunity to understand the ins-and-outs of the industry, and to take on tasks I might not have at a larger company. I think this experience gives me a slight edge over other applicants.”
    Similar to the answer above, this answer is a good one if you’re attempting to switch industries. If you think your prior experience could deter interviewers from seeing you as exceptionally qualified, this is an optimal chance to prove them wrong. Consider how your background has allowed you to gain unique skills that others, who followed a more linear career trajectory, might not have. 
    For instance, if you previously worked at a small startup and now you want to transfer to a large corporation, it’s important you mention how those skills will make you successful in this new role.
    5. “I’m not afraid of failure. In fact, I think it is an essential part of the experimental process that gets you to success. For example … ”
    This answer shows your interviewer that you’re not afraid to take risks. Of course, you’ll only want to say this if you have a positive example to reinforce the importance of failure in the workplace.
    You don’t want to sound like you make mistakes all the time, but you’ll stand out if you mention how you turned a failure into a success.
    For instance, you might say, “I’m not afraid of failure. In my last role, we tried to streamline our SEO process and, along the way, found we’d accidentally decreased traffic to our site. However, this initial failure allowed me to see the errors in our previous procedure. My team and I came up with a more successful strategy to avoid these mistakes in the future, and ended up increasing traffic by 20%.”
    With this answer, you’re showing you’re capable of remaining flexible and open-minded when something doesn’t work right away, and you know how to take failures and use them as learning opportunities — a critical skill for any work environment.

    6. “When solving problems, I apply both logic and emotional aspects in equal proportion. For instance, I’m trained in SEO and understand how to use analytics to ensure a marketing campaign is successful, but I also majored in design and know how to apply creativity to a project as well.”
    If you’re stuck on deciding how to demonstrate your unique qualifications, start by thinking about how other people approach problems at your company, and how you differ.
    For instance, most people are either logical and use analytics to solve problems, or emotional and use creativity. It’s rare to find someone who is both. If you truly believe you combine these two aspects, it’s an impressive ability you should highlight.
    7. “I’m exceptionally organized, and at my last company, I was able to apply this skill to improve our process and increase ROI by 33%.”
    Remember, when your interviewee asks “what makes you unique”, she’s really wondering “how will you help our company?” At the end of the day, it’s critical you tie your answer back to how you will solve problems for the company. 
    48% of recruiters say improving quality of hire is their top priority in 2022 — so you’ll want to ensure your answer highlights how you will excel in the role for the long haul.
    To avoid sounding like you’re bragging, consider a personality trait or skill set that helped your last company achieve results. If the results are quantitative, make sure you have the specific numbers to support your claim. However, it’s also appropriate to share qualitative results, such as, “my organizational skills led my manager to trusting me with a major project within the first two months in my role.” Ultimately, providing examples shows the interviewer you’re results-driven, and aren’t just saying generic phrases to answer her question.

  • 5 Skills and Traits Every Call Center Leader Should Have

    What comes to mind when you think of the ideal call center leader? Organized? Professional? Inspiring? While those are certainly beneficial, the right candidate needs a lot more than that to make it as a successful call center leader.
    If you want your agents to consistently meet company goals, you must invest in the right leaders, including managers and supervisors. They must set strong examples of teamwork, work ethic, company values, and of course: customer service.
    Easier said than done, right? Being a call center leader is hard work; work that’s vital to ensure a successful call center operation. The cost of investing in the wrong leader is exorbitant– call center attrition and customer dissatisfaction are sure to increase if you do.
    How to Foster Agent Engagement in a Hybrid Contact Center
    Why Investing in the Right Leader is Critical
    Call center agents don’t have easy jobs. Their day-to-day work is riddled with angry customers, monotonous scripts, and constant problem-solving. Despite the $330 billion market value of the global call center industry, attrition is worse for call centers than in any other field.
    Did you know that ineffective leadership is one of the top reasons for call center attrition? That’s right – call center agents cite ineffective leadership as a leading cause for their leaving.

    FACT:
    Ineffective leadership is one of the top causes of agent attrition.

    The right call center leader can be the difference between average or severe attrition. The best call center leader retains the strongest agents for a long time, saving valuable company dollars and time in recruitment, onboarding, and training.
    In 2022, agent attrition is worse than ever. And, agent engagement continues to be the catalyst for customer loyalty and revenue.
    Bottom line? The easiest way to boost employee engagement and retention is to invest in the right call center leader.
    Agent Engagement Will Be Critical for Contact Centers in 2022
    5 Skills and Traits Every Call Center Leader Should Have
    Organizational skills.
    With so many agents, tasks, and objectives to manage, strong organization skills are key for call center leaders to stay on top of their work. Between call volume forecasting, agent training and performance management, and handling call escalations, even a typical word day can become overwhelming, fast.
    Workforce management is one area in particular that benefits from this skill. A good leader should be perceptive to company needs, and be able to take swift action to address challenges. This means staying on top of scheduling, ensuring all staff are equipped with the proper skill-set and knowledge base to support incoming customer queries, and providing support to team members as required.
    Patience under pressure.
    A patient call center leader can accomplish more in their work than an impatient one. After all, one cannot be successful in this role without keeping a cool head during stressful scenarios.
    Here are several common scenarios where patience under pressure pays off:

    Motivating agents; managing team culture.
    Handling customer escalations and complex queries.
    Conducting performance evaluations and providing feedback to agents.
    Building up performance metrics; delivering KPI reports.

    Customer experience managers agree that patience is one of the most vital soft skills that surpasses even technical knowledge in importance.
    The Manager’s Guide to Call Center Gamification
    Change management.
    Workplace transitions can turn into utter chaos without proper management. The contact center industry experienced this firsthand during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced a dramatic shift to remote and hybrid operations. But transitional periods involving employee turnover, new management, and the adoption of new tools and technology can also have a significant impact on agent morale and performance.
    Call center leaders should understand change management well so they can support their employees with the ever-changing industry. With new contact center trends surfacing every year, call center leaders must effectively take new industry information and changes into account and ensure their agents have the support and information they need to continue their work with confidence.
    Industry Report: Contact Center Trends 2022
    Flexible communication and relationship building.
    Communication skills are vital for call center leaders, as their work requires them to interact with many different stakeholders. They need to convey department activities within different contexts depending on who they’re communicating with – whether they’re addressing a customer escalation, managing a vendor relationship, or presenting performance reports to a contact center executive.
    Leaders must also be able to build relationships with their agents, so they can better guide their efforts. Agent performance reviews are one area that can be challenging to navigate. A call center leader should deliver encouragement and constructive criticism in a way that helps the agent grow. Of course, each agent will have unique needs and styles, so leaders should be flexible in their delivery for best results.
    The Only Call Center Metrics for Agent Performance You’ll Ever Need
    Hands-on problem solving.
    A good leader doesn’t sit on the sidelines and watch when agents are overwhelmed with high call volumes or faulty call center technology.
    The best call center leaders are team players. They’re not afraid to jump on the phones and help their teams throughout peak call volumes. If an agent struggles with software, leaders should immediately seek a solution. They might delegate the task to another agent, try to fix the software themselves, or call the provider to solve the issue.

    DID YOU KNOW?
    Fonolo’s Voice Call-Back technology is an excellent example of software that’s reliable, efficient in handling call volumes, and frequently tested to ensure functionality.

    So, why does all this matter? A good call center leader has a domino effect on business success. Strong managers lead to more engaged employees, which leads to an 147% higher average of earnings per share than the competition.
    Finding someone that embodies all the above five traits isn’t easy. Next up, we’ll discuss some ways you can ensure your call center has the right leaders.
    How to Find the Best Call Center Leaders
    A candidate might meet some requirements for a management role, but completely lack others. It’s hard to find good talent! Here are some tips to find the best call center leader:

    Prioritize succession planning: Always think about the next manager in the line-up so that you’re not scrambling if a leader finds a new opportunity.
    Ask the right interview questions: Ask candidates about specific examples of their experiences managing teams. In addition, consider your center’s pain points prior to the interview and ask the candidates how they could address them.
    Invest in agents: Give them opportunities to mentor their peers and grow leadership skills. You might find a strong leader already working on your team!
    Offer competitive benefits: The best talent goes where they’re appreciated. Make sure your job ad lists fair and competitive compensation and flexible work arrangements to attract and retain the best talent.

    Hiring for a call center manager? Remember to ask specific questions about candidate experiences, and look to your existing team for succession opportunities. #CallCenter #CCTR #HiringClick To TweetThe post 5 Skills and Traits Every Call Center Leader Should Have first appeared on Fonolo.

  • Launched a User onboarding Tool on PH

    Today we launched Checklisty on Product Hunt. Checklisty helps companies achieve over a 35% increase in Product Adoption rates by helping train their users better with a user onboarding checklist. Checklisty helps: Increase trial conversion. Get faster onboarding. Cut down time-to-value. I would be pleased to get your feedback and comments on our new project, so please check our PH page 🙂 Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/checklisty submitted by /u/Ornery-Discount2701 [link] [comments]

  • Modern marketing and hustle

    Hustle uses shortcuts and effort to bend the conventions of society to get more than the hustler’s fair share of attention. Hustle burns trust for awareness. Because it’s a shortcut, hustle might deliver in the short-run, but hustle is notably non-consensual. Few people want to be hustled.

    Marketing is the work of helping people get what they’ve wanted all along. Marketing is about establishing the conditions for a small group of people to eagerly spread the word and build connection. Modern marketing changes the culture by establishing what the new norms are, and does it in a way that makes things better for those it serves.

    Taking attention vs. storytelling and service. Sometimes it feels like the shortcuts and depersonalization and scale are the only option, then a great marketing project comes along and we’re reminded that in fact, we can do work we’re proud of.

  • Your A-Z Content Audit Guide

    Today, you’ll learn step-by-step how to do a content audit that works – and we know it works because we’ve grown our traffic 10x over the past few years using content. And in-depth audits have helped us get there. In this guide, you’ll learn: Where to find your site’s content strengths Steps to repair content…
    The post Your A-Z Content Audit Guide appeared first on Benchmark Email.

  • Salesforce Acquires Phennecs: Sandbox Privacy Startup

    Salesforce has acquired Phennecs, a provider of privacy, compliance and data management solutions. Trust is Salesforce’s number one value, so Phennecs’s addition will strengthen their ability to offer data security and privacy compliance across the platform within sandbox environments. About Phennecs Phennecs is built on… Read More

  • Are we reaching the email endgame? Communication with customers

    Recent reports in publications such as The New York Times have questioned email’s longevity as a communication channel of choice. But what’s the reality? How can we do communication with customers effectively? The argument goes that Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) – a generation raised on social media and instant messaging – prefers almost…
    The post Are we reaching the email endgame? Communication with customers appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

  • Five best practices to improve sustainability in business for last-mile deliveries 

    In a recent report, Accenture describes last mile deliveries as being at a crucial moment in terms of sustainability: “The last mile ecosystem is at a tipping point. Go one way, and it can extend these gains. Go the other way, and environmental impacts will worsen.”  Simply put, the pandemic has encouraged retailers and other…
    The post Five best practices to improve sustainability in business for last-mile deliveries  appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

  • @Mention a Related User In a Post to Chatter Action

    Last Updated on April 4, 2022 by Rakesh GuptaBig Idea or Enduring Question: How do you @mentioned related users in a Post to Chatter Salesforce Flow action?  Objectives: After reading this blog, you’ll be able to:  Use the post to chatter action in the record-triggered flow Use Get element to
    The post @Mention a Related User In a Post to Chatter Action appeared first on Automation Champion.

  • Auto Post a Message to Chatter When an Event is Created

    Last Updated on April 4, 2022 by Rakesh GuptaBig Idea or Enduring Question: How do you automatically Post a message to Chatter Group message when a user creates an event? In Salesforce, Chatter Group represents the group of people. It’s a great way to boost collaboration in your organization. You
    The post Auto Post a Message to Chatter When an Event is Created appeared first on Automation Champion.