List Of Customer Sale Representative Interview Questions
Q – 1 How to interact with people?
Ans- Describe your style. Put your best foot forward – if applicable, use words such as friendly, enthusiastic, informed, quick, patient, and lucid.
These are just some of the commonly asked interview questions for customer service representatives.
Q – 2 How successful are you over the phone?
Ans- Mention profitable product sales, positive/fruitful customer instruction, customer care with patience and any communication which leads to improved customer service or a sale.
Q – 3 Do you have strong communication skills?
Ans- You can relate success stories and any interesting interactions you had with clients, especially if it portrays good customer service skills. Explain how you have solved problems and created positive relationships with customers.
Q – 4 Can you work in a computerized environment?
Ans- Describe your ability to work with Microsoft Office or other relevant programs, and any computer experience, such as placing orders in the company computer or saving digital records of services and closed deals.
Q – 5 What sales experience do you have?
Ans- The ability to negotiate and sell products may be an important part of the job. If so, mention any experience with selling, telemarketing and promotions.
Q – 6 Explain a routine day of a typical customer service representative?
Ans- List whatever tasks you perform each day. Some of these may be among them: Answering requests, responding to calls, maintaining and updating records, providing service information, dealing with misapplied payments and billing.
Q – 7 What type of products have you sold?
Do you have a proven record of accomplishment in sales?
How do you find prospective clients?
Have you ever used a consulting firm to find clients or buyers?
Ans- The employer would like to know – what is your former sales experience?
What industries or institutions have you worked for in the past? What is your technical experience? What type of products have you sold? Do you meet your customers? How often?
It is good practice to supply any existing documentation not otherwise supplied with your resume. Any forms, newsletters, presentations, online marketing material, graphs or infomercials you have created, or any letters from satisfied clients will be well received.
Q – 8 How do you meet your quotas? What creative ways have you used to meet quotas and deadlines?
Do you often meet your quotas? What is your average percentage of quotas met?
How do you feel when not making a sale or meeting a quota?
What do you do to restore your confidence?
Ans- It is best to prepare answers you can easily and briefly relate.
Detail your capability to handle a tough situation. Your confidence in problem solving should be narrated as well, with a suitable anecdote portray yourself in a positive light, without arrogance.
Give details of a sales related challenge, explain why you proceeded as you did, and end with the successful result.
Q – 9 Do you have a sales plan template? How did you go about creating it? Does your template include a forecast for 30/60/90 days? And five years?
Do you have prospective buyers? To whom do you plan to sell our product?
How do you plan to follow up on your sales?
If you meet your quotas for your forecast plan, what is next?
What is your backup plan, if you do not meet your quotas?
Ans- It is most impressive to have a solid forecast on paper.
Just speculating in regards to any of these questions is not advised. The sounder your presentation is, the more confident your prospective employer will be in giving you this opportunity. Review your presentation with colleagues who will critique and improve your rendition.
Q – 10 What attracts you to a career in sales?
What motivates you regarding sales and marketing?
Why do you want this job?
What makes a good sales person?
Please state your likes and dislikes, in reference to sales?
Ans- You want to reply with the utmost confidence and integrity.
Eagerness and motivation are good qualities to display, with replies such as:
“I love a good challenge and each prospective buyer creates a challenge in their unique way.
I like to be able to offer a quality product I can believe in and can truly serve the client.”
“Your product is unique and offers good value.”
“I take pleasure in offering a client goods or services that can truly enrich his life or grow his business.”
Sandwich dislikes, if any, in between positive aspects of the job. Replying, “I have no specific dislikes” is fine.
Q – 11 Tell me about one of your successive sales and the process used to achieve this sale.
What creative ways have you used to meet quotas and deadlines?
Ans- Never relay that this challenge was easy. It is fine to state perhaps that you would believe their product might sell itself – complimenting its quality or marketability; remember they want to see that sales drive potential. Detail your most successful and challenging sale, giving honest but short details. Keep the story upbeat and positive.
Q – 12 Give an example of an unsuccessful sales experience.
Describe a situation where you gave up on a sale.
What do you do when you see you are unsuccessful in closing a sale or meeting a quota?
Give an example of the most time consuming sale you have ever made?
Ans- Hopefully, your reaction to lost sales has been to analyze what went wrong, and how you might have succeeded. Perhaps you have studied motivational material, or consulted with colleagues to plan a better approach in the future. Discuss how you have grown in skills you’re your losses, including the lessons you have learned.
Q – 13 Give an example of when you initiated/created a new sales/marketing technique and enjoyed the results.
How do you maintain/initiate a good relationship with clients? How do you keep them satisfied and interested in future sales?
What makes a product successful?
Ans- Review your sales history carefully, with an eye to answering these types of queries. Prepare your answers, and consult with colleagues. If you have any paperwork to show, such as product description, potential earning power of product, thank you letters, bring them to the interview.
Q – 14 Tell me about a successful and formal presentation you made recently.
How do you present a new product for a client?
Ans- They will want to view an actual presentation. If you have experience in sales, you will have a few of these available; select the most interesting, unusual or successful.
It would be best to research the areas within the industry you are applying, so that you can speak intelligently about their products and potential client base. It would be wise to know as much as possible about the particular industry.
Q – 15 How do you prepare for a sale?
Can you describe your most difficult client? How did you handle this client and were you able to make the sale?
If you do not sell to a particular prospective client, would you plan to try to sell to them again? How do you change your approach?
Ans- Keep in mind that selling is a positive and outgoing, self-motivating field of employment. Conveying that one has these attitudes will bring success.
At the same time, you may wish to express this point. Your time is valuable yet limited. Time spent on convincing an uninterested client could be perhaps better invested in a new potential client.
Q – 16 Do you have experience answering phones, handling requests, etc?
Ans- Talk about relevant experience, even if it wasn’t a telephone service. Mention any job related to serving customers and interacting with clients. Speak about your ability to communicate with many customers each day while maintaining composure under a heavy workload and time pressure.
Q – 17 Tell me about your qualifications for this position?
Ans- Mention educational qualification, including high-school diploma or higher or any professional coursework. Also specify any relevant job skills such as written and verbal communication expertise, ability to type efficiently, professional demeanor and strong work ethics.
Q – 18 What is your take on collaboration within a sales team?
Ans- Collaboration might be less important at some organizations than others, but candidates who aren’t willing to collaborate at all won’t likely make pleasant coworkers, not to mention their uncooperative attitude will block knowledge sharing.
Q – 19 What is your ultimate career aspiration?
Ans- Lack of growth opportunities was one of the top three reasons that would cause a salesperson to look for a new job, according to a survey from Glassdoor. If the candidate expresses a desire to pursue a career move your company can’t provide, you might be interviewing again sooner than you’d like.
Q – 20 What is your approach to handling customer objections?
Ans- Preparing to deal with objections instead of winging it is critical. Listen for evidence of a process.
Q – 21 What is your opinion of the role of learning in sales?
Ans- Being thrown for a loop by this question is a sign that your candidate isn’t a life-long learner, which is becoming increasingly important in sales.
Q – 22 When to stop pursuing a client?
Ans- The right answer here will depend on your company’s process, but in general, the more tenacious and persistent a rep is willing to be, the better. Trish Bertuzzi, founder of The Bridge Group, recommends six to eight attempts before throwing in the towel.
Q – 23 Tell me have you ever asked a prospect who didn’t buy from you to explain why you lost the deal? What did they say, and what did you learn from that experience?
Ans- Following up on deals to learn how to do better next time — win or lose — boosts the odds of winning in the future. A salesperson who takes the time to learn from both their successes and their failures will likely be a valuable addition to your team.
Q – 24 What role does social media play in your selling process?
Ans- Social selling is becoming more important in all industries. If the candidate has not used social channels to research prospects or look for leads in the past, make sure they have a willingness to learn.
Q – 25 What role does content play in your selling process?
Ans- Again, it’s not necessarily a deal breaker if the salesperson doesn’t actively share and engage with content on their social media accounts, but they should at least want to start doing so.
Q – 26 How to research prospects before a call or meeting? What information do you look for?
Ans- Neglecting to use LinkedIn to research clients is not a viable option in today’s sales environment. Ensure that candidates are searching for personal commonalities in addition to professional information so they can tailor their communication as much as possible. Looking into company trigger events would be the cherry on top.
Q – 27 Tell me have you ever turned a prospect away? If so, why?
Ans- Selling to everyone and anyone — even if a salesperson knows it’s not in the prospect’s best interest — is a recipe for disaster. Make sure your candidate is comfortable with turning business away if the potential customer isn’t a good fit.
Q – 28 Explain what are some of your favorite questions to ask prospects?
Ans- Salespeople today should be asking questions more than making pitches. Open-ended questions that help a rep thoroughly understand a prospect’s needs are as good as gold.
Q – 29 In your last position, how much time did you spend cultivating customer relationships vs. hunting for new clients, and why?
Ans- Certain companies and roles call for people better at farming or hunting, but look out for a person who performs one of these tasks to the exclusion of the other. Both are vital to selling well.
Q – 30 If you were hired for this position, what would you do in your first month?
Ans- The answer to this question doesn’t have to blow you away. However, the candidate should have some sort of action plan to get up and running. No matter how much training you provide, it’s still smart to hire a self-starter when you can.
Q – 31 Tell me what made you want to get into sales?
Ans- Commission, while perhaps part of the motivation, is not a great response to this question.
Q – 32 Explain what do you think our company/sales organization could do better?
Ans- This sales interview question serves two purposes: it shows how much research the candidate did before meeting with you, and it demonstrates their creative thinking and entrepreneurial capabilities.
Q – 33 Tell me have you ever had a losing streak? How did you turn it around?
Ans- Everyone has bad spells, so beware of someone who claims they’ve never experienced a downturn. Nothing’s wrong with a temporary slump as long as the candidate learned from it.
Q – 34 How to approach a short sales cycle differently than a long sales cycle?
Ans- Short cycles call for reps that can close quickly, and long sales cycles require a much more careful, tailored approach. They’re drastically different, and your candidate should recognize this.
Q – 35 How to keep a smile on your face during a hard day?
Ans- Appraise the person’s attitude towards rejection. Do they need time to shake off an unpleasant conversation? Or do they bounce back immediately?
Q – 36 What are three adjectives a former client would use to describe you?
Ans- Listen for synonyms of “helpful,” as a consultative approach is becoming increasingly important in modern sales.
Q – 37 Can you please tell me what motivates you?
Ans- Money, achievement, helping customers, being #1 — there are a lot of potential answers to this question. What makes a good answer vs. a bad one will hinge on your company culture. For instance, if teamwork is paramount within your sales team, a candidate who is driven by internal competition might not be a great fit.
Q – 38 Tell me who are you most comfortable selling to and why?
Ans- Listen for whether they answer with a description of an ideal buyer, or a particular demographic with no tie-in to the buying process. Depending on your product or service, the second type of response might pose a problem.
Q – 39 What is your least favorite part of the sales process?
Ans- If their least favorite part is the most important part at your company, that’s probably a red flag. This question can also alert you to weak areas.
Q – 40 What is worse, not making quota every single month or not having happy customers?
Ans- Depending on your company’s goals, either answer could be the right one. But beware of reps who will prioritize quota over truly giving customers what they need — or withholding from them what they don’t.
Q – 41 Explain something to me?
Ans- While this technically isn’t a question, it’s important to assess whether the candidate has a helpful demeanor.
Q – 42 How to keep up to date on your target market?
Ans- Even if the target market of their last job is totally different than that of the one they’re interviewing for, this will show you their ability to find and keep up to date with relevant trade publications and blogs.