Eastridge helped a major streaming service hire nearly 500 temporary and permanent employees to staff a 100%-remote call center
In the cutthroat streaming industry, finding the call center staff with the right enthusiasm, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills is vital, as they are the first point of contact for viewers and a critical brand ambassador.
One leading streaming service needed to staff a new call center quickly, requiring nearly 500 temporary and permanent call center employees who were equipped to work 100% remotely. These employees would be required to provide application support with regard to software functionality and troubleshooting as well as accurate real-time answers to viewer inquiries. They also had specific technical requirements for employees’ home high-speed internet setup.
To streamline the hiring process, the Eastridge team developed several pre-screening assessments that they handled on the client’s behalf, only submitting candidates after they had passed the home office environment pre-screen, the online skills assessment, and an in-depth interview with each candidate. The team also assessed candidates for both technical skills to ensure excellent customer support, and soft skills to ensure a pleasant customer experience. Eastridge also managed the onboarding process, collected ongoing feedback from employees and held monthly status reviews with the client to review metrics and hiring progress.
Streamlining the hiring process in this way, as well as tapping Eastridge’s existing talent pool for candidates, resulted in the client hiring 250+ temporary roles and 200 direct hire roles over the course of six months, with a 92% retention rate.
Challenges
The client needed to staff a call center with employees who were set up to work 100% remotely, as quickly as possible. To be fully operational, the client needed to:
- Fulfill a minimum of 100 call center representative positions within a 4-week period
- Establish a contingent workforce program capable of working from home
- Hire 200 call center representatives as full-time employees
- Hire 250 temporary call center representatives within six months
Solutions
Based on past experience with similar clients hiring at high volumes, Eastridge developed a pre-screen process and a questionnaire to help ensure that any candidates that made it through Eastridge’s interviews were completely qualified and technically set up to do the work prior to interviewing with the client. To this end, Eastridge implemented the following approaches to simplify the hiring process:
- Pre-screen questions for testing home office environment equipment assessment including internet speed.
- Online assessment including mathematical skills, grammar/writing skills, comprehension, e-mail etiquette and a typing test.
- In-depth phone screen with Eastridge prior to an interview with the client.
- Onboarding including I-9 paperwork, remote worker safety practices documentation.
- Worker feedback including regular quality checks and exit interviews with workers through platforms like Survey Monkey and phone calls.
- Monthly status reviews with the client to review sourcing and fulfillment KPIs, turnover metrics, market updates, candidate as well as worker feedback including exit interviews.
In addition to helping the client hire the required call center staff, the Eastridge team advised the client to solve potential problems they hadn’t foreseen, including providing a work from home policy agreement and a telecommuting waiver as well as a suggested means to track the client’s technology assets being used by remote workers.
“For this client, finding the right match of personality and skill was essential. The Eastridge team was able to fill roles quickly and then ramp up staffing over the long-term. But helping the client avoid potential pitfalls along the away ensured that they were able to keep that talent and build momentum.”
– Chris Diaz, Associate Director of Professional Staffing
Results
The Eastridge team was able to find qualified candidates and fill the nearly 500 open roles within the six-month time frame needed by the client. The team also staffed the call center with the 100 roles filled within the first four weeks, drawing in part from Eastridge’s pre-existing talent pool of qualified workers. Here is a more detailed breakdown of Eastridge’s results:
- Filled 100 call center representative positions within the first 4 weeks
- Established a contingent workforce capable of working from home
- 250+ Temporary Roles in 6 months
- 200 Direct Hire employees
- 92% retention rate at six months
- Average of 40 starts every 2 weeks
About Eastridge
Established in 1972, Eastridge Workforce Solutions is an employee-owned provider of full-service talent acquisition and management solutions for companies globally. Eastridge provides a full range of solutions solving today's workforce challenges. In addition to professional / technical and industrial recruiting we provide workforce management solutions such as payrolling, recruitment process outsourcing, as well as master service provider and vendor management systems programs. We back our services with the Eastridge Cloud, a proprietary technology that streamlines every step of workforce management. Eastridge proudly helps over 20,000 associates find jobs annually across the globe.
