Retail - Customer Service Situational Judgement

Everything you need to know.

Every retail employer or store owner knows how important it is for their employees to demonstrate excellent customer service. Whether it be enticing customers into the store, effectively marketing products or ensuring speedy sales, the standard of customer service that you deliver can make or break your store.

Customer service is not something to scrimp on. Many consumers would decide to shop from another business after just one instance of poor retail customer service, and the majority of consumers rate customer service as just as - if not more - important than the quality of the products or services actually sold.

Situational judgement tests (or SJTs) provide an easy and effective way to assess your current or prospective employees' competency for retail customer service. If you're looking for a cost and time-effective way to streamline your next retail recruitment process, assess prospective candidates' competency for a retail role, or enhance the customer service skills of your current team members, our situational judgement test is your ideal choice.

Retail - Customer Service Situational Judgement

What Is The Customer Service Situational Judgement Test?

Like any aptitude test, a situational judgement test (SJT) gleans insight into a person's skills, personality and behaviour based on their responses to a series of situation-based questions.

Our situational judgement test has been expertly designed with customer service in mind. The questions on the computer-based SJT assessment are made to reflect real-life examples of situations and scenarios that the candidate may be faced with in a retail, sales or customer-facing role.

Candidates are presented with a series of scenarios and a list of possible responses to rank according to which they believe would be the most effective for the given situation. They have 10 questions to complete in 15 minutes and their responses are automatically marked. A point is awarded for each correctly ranked response, with a maximum sum of four for each question. Skipped questions or those that are not answered will result in no point being awarded.

Practice test available
Randomised presentation
15 minutes available

10 minutes average completion time
15 questions presented
15 questions in pool

Who Is The Customer Service Situational Judgement Skills Test Aimed At?

Our customer service situational judgement test (SJT) is specially designed to assess essential customer service skills. As such, it would be a valuable resource for any employer or hiring manager looking to recruit for retail, sales or customer service roles. These could include sales assistants, store managers, telesales associates, customer assistants and many more.

When used in the candidate screening stage of your recruitment process, you can effortlessly sift through hundreds of applicants to find those with the necessary retail customer service skills and experience required for the role. This makes the selection process of your next customer service representative or sales assistant much more efficient. Additionally, our situational judgement test could even be used by managers or employers to develop the customer service and retail skills of their current employees, ensuring excellent customer service at all times.

Skills Measured

01 Communication: Effective communication skills are vital in any customer service role, regardless of whether you're providing customer support online or face-to-face.
02 Conflict Resolution: Sales and retail businesses are notorious for being high-pressure workplaces - for staff and customers alike. The ability to effectively manage challenging behaviour and resolve stressful scenarios with appropriate responses and in a professional manner is a key skill for any customer service or sales associate.
03 Problem-Solving: When faced with day-to-day customer service dilemmas, it's important for team members to think on their feet and use their initiative. Customer service representatives must use professional judgement and rapid decision-making to ensure a smooth customer journey and pleasant shopping experience whether it's in-store or eCommerce.
04 Organisation: It's impossible to provide good customer service without also having strong organisational skills. This allows your team to be flexible, proactive and provide an efficient, effective response.

Why Use A Customer Service Situational Judgement Test?

Whether you run a multi-million-pound company, local store, chain retailer or small business, high-quality customer service skills are absolutely essential in ensuring your success. Therefore, it couldn't be more important to ensure that your team members are highly skilled when it comes to customer service. Our situational judgement test (SJT) allows you to do just that, as well as:

Enhance Customer Experience: You just can't compete with good customer service when it comes to providing a first-class customer experience. An exceptional customer service experience has the potential to stick in someone's mind for years to come, which can do amazing things for your business. Considering that company reviews influence the purchasing decisions of 88% of consumers, it's vital to ensure that your retail team is providing high-quality customer service at all times.
Encourage Customer Loyalty: High-quality customer service not only ensures that customers have a pleasant time when shopping in-store but also allows a company or brand to build a loyal customer base and reap the benefits of repeat custom.
Boost Sales: Not only does effective retail customer service enhance a customer's shopping experience and brand loyalty but it also encourages purchases. 64% of consumers find customer service more important than price and 67% would pay more to shop somewhere with excellent customer service. As you can see, ensuring that your business is run by highly-skilled customer service representatives is absolutely essential for your revenue as well as your reputation.