Client facing skills are relevant to all roles, regardless of whether you work in sales or work in the back office. Your clients might be external customers or within the organisation such as another department. So having an understanding of client-facing skills will help you in every interview.
Your personality and behaviour play a big part in all client-facing activities. Prepare for questions that delve into these areas. You will be asked situational interview questions, like how you might handle a client facing situation in the future.
How to answer questions on Client Facing Skills:
Let’s look at the personality questions first. The personality questions will look at how you interact with others, particularly as the bones of this role will involve people interaction. You may be asked how you work in a team, or whether you prefer to work alone. Your personality will shine through during the interview, so think about how best to represent yourself and how it relates to the role itself. Be courteous, confident and communicate clearly.
Prepare for behavioural questions; you will be asked to give examples of how you’ve handled specific situations in the past. The hiring manager is interested in how you would handle a similar situation if you got the job. Think about times that you had resolved a dispute with a client or negotiated a sale. I’d recommend preparing an example of a time when things didn’t go well with a customer. Be prepared with well thought out examples.
Situational interview questions are harder to prepare for. You will be asked how you would handle a situation that might arise in this particular role. Because you don’t know the full extent of the position, you may not be able to prepare for all eventualities. Think about the most likely scenarios such as customer complaints, a customer asking for a discount or what you would do if you were asked a tricky question.
Client facing interview skills is the fourth article in our Interview Prep 101 series. We’ve covered teamwork questions, time management and motivation in earlier articles. Next week we will be looking at communication interview questions.
