If you can’t pass the chair test, then you can’t work at Gainesville Health & Fitness. And, jobseeker, beware: This is one test you won’t get to retake.

The fitness company, which has three locations in north-central Florida, was founded with exemplary customer service in mind, a culture that has made the gym one of the eight best health clubs in the United States, according to Men’s Health magazine; one of the country’s five cleanest gyms, according to the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association; and the Gainesville Chamber of Commerce’s Business of the Year.

Gym employees are expected to consistently display a servant’s heart, helping members track their progress, encouraging them to give their all while spotting them on machines, offering constructive feedback on technique and keeping the facilities spotless. When it comes to finding such dedicated employees, actions speak louder than words.

Enter the chair test.

A hiring manager will bring an interviewee into a room that has a bunch of extra chairs in it and will explain that he has to move these chairs into another room before he can begin the interview. If the jobseeker doesn’t offer to help, choosing instead to watch the hiring manager move each chair by himself, then the job interview is over. The hiring manager will thank the interviewee for coming in, inform him that he isn’t a good fit for the team and usher him out of the room.

When the jobseeker inevitably protests that he hasn’t even been interviewed yet, the hiring manager has a succinct reply: “I just did.”

“The whole selection process is designed to weed out the wrong people,” said Will Phillips, a health-club management consultant who has worked with Gainesville Health & Fitness founder Joe Cirulli. “Joe takes very seriously the idea that you should hire for attitude and train for skill.”

When it comes to finding the right customer-service professionals, car wash companies face the same challenges as gyms, restaurants and the millions of other service and retail businesses where front-line employees are the face of the company. Even one employee who is lazy or has a bad attitude can adversely impact a company’s bottom line and its brand. In a highly competitive business sector like the car wash industry, which is entrusted with what many consumers deem their most valuable and valued possession, a reputation for poor customer service can be a death sentence.

Traits that matter

Ladan Nikravan, a career adviser at the leading job-search website CareerBuilder, said that regardless of the industry, top customer-service employees possess patience, a pleasant personality and the ability to communicate well. But what sets customer-oriented people apart is their desire to help.

“Some workers are motivated by the bottom line and see interactions with customers as a distraction from achieving other goals,” Nikravan said. “Customer-service-oriented workers share a common characteristic in that they’re naturally helpful people. They don’t mind taking time to assist another person, whether it’s a client, coworker or complete stranger, to lighten their load. In interviews, ask candidates for examples of when they went out of their way to help someone.”

The competition for top customer-service professionals is intense. Last November and December alone, CareerBuilder had postings for more than 3.22 million U.S. customer-service jobs, Nikravan said. The most popular type of job opening on the site was for managers of front-line retail sales workers (334,250), followed by retail salespeople (284,154) and customer-service representatives (250,188).

To identify the right candidates, Nikravan and several customer-service consultants interviewed for this piece recommend the following points of emphasis:

• Start with the most basic question. Shep Hyken, a customer-service consultant whose books on the topic include “The Amazement Revolution,” recommends that car wash operators borrow a tip from the high-end clothing retailer Nordstrom, which asks all of its interviewees for their definition of customer service. “There are hundreds of right definitions. There’s not one correct one,” he said. “However, there are also some wrong ones, and when someone doesn’t seem to understand how they would define customer service, then that’s an issue.”

• Since customer service requires problem solving, ask candidates to talk about a time when they resolved a customer-service-related problem, or present them with a theoretical workplace dilemma, such as a damaged car or an irate customer, and ask them for a solution, Nikravan said.

• Ask the jobseeker about a time when she was unable to help a customer, Nikravan said. What was the issue, and how did she handle the situation? What are her strengths and weaknesses when interacting with customers, and what makes her a good candidate to be the face of the business? What does she find enjoyable or rewarding about working in customer service? Ask the jobseeker about times when he received excellent or subpar customer service, Nikravan said. This can help reveal an interviewee’s attention
to detail.

• Find out what the candidate knows about the company. “As professionals, we prepare for each interview we conduct,” Nikravan said. “A candidate has a similar responsibility. If they show up to an interview without having done their homework, it suggests that they will likely lack preparation in their day-to-day role within the organization.”

• The jobseeker obviously should be interested in the job because it would benefit him personally, but take note if he talks more about his own personal gain than about how he can help the team, Nikravan said. Ask about a time in the job applicant’s career or personal life when he showed two of the most important traits for customer service: resilience and patience.

“It’s not enough to just be a people person,” Hyken said. “You also have to have a tremendous amount of resiliency to deal with a customer and calm them down, and you also need to have a tremendous amount of patience because some customers, even if they are very nice people, might not be very competent. Those are two very important qualities.”

Attitude makes all the difference

A smile goes a long way, especially in fast-paced customer-service jobs, said Cary Cavitt, a customer-service consultant whose books on the subject include “Customer Service Superstars.”

Sales professionals are taught to smile while on the phone in order to project positivity and friendliness, even though the customer can’t see them, and competitive bodybuilders must master the art of smiling while exerting maximum effort and focus in their poses. A smile, especially from an employee who is busy and hard at work, welcomes customers and can disarm dissatisfied ones, so take note if a jobseeker refrains from smiling.

“It’s the employee’s attitude that makes all the difference,” Cavitt said. “Are they personable? Are they smiling and friendly? That’s the kind of people you want to hire. It all comes down to how people perceive your attitude when you’re serving them, and service begins with a smile.”

Use your employees as a resource

Employees can recommend responsible people they know for jobs, but they also can help car wash operators sort out the candidates who apply. Cavitt suggested that car wash operators have interviewees shadow a top employee prior to the interview so he can get a feel for what the job is like. During the interview, the hiring manager can then ask the job applicant for suggestions about how the car wash can better serve its customers. What did he see that was effective, and what was ineffective?

“You need to see if they have an aptitude for sensing what good service is and what bad service is,” Cavitt said.

Also, by allowing a trusted employee to interact with the jobseeker, the hiring manager can get a better sense of the applicant’s true personality. Most jobseekers can manage to remain professional for the duration of an interview with the boss, but how will he interact with an entry-level employee? Will the same level of respect and professionalism be there the entire time?

“Everyone shows their best at an interview – it’s downhill from there,” Cavitt said. “Everyone is important and should be treated the same. If you treat the boss better than the entry-level employee, that says something about you.”

Employees also can provide car wash operators with good questions to ask. Hiring managers should ask employees for their most challenging experiences with customers and how they handled them, and then ask the job applicant how they would handle the same situation.

“It’s about trying to gauge whether they have reasonable manners when things aren’t going as planned, because invariably, things will break down, or there will be a long line of customers,” said customer-service consultant Elaine Allison. “I would recommend that interviewers look for scenarios that apply directly to their own situations.”

RÉSUMÉ details

Candidates who have worked for large corporations that have extensive training programs for front-line employees typically will have an edge over applicants from much smaller operations when it comes to customer service, Allison said.

“On a résumé, I would look for candidates who have that kind of corporate training,” she said. “I’m telling you, if they’ve worked for McDonald’s, they’ve had really good training. With the larger organizations, they’ve at least had some customer-service training.”

Make the application overly thorough, and ask for references that aren’t just friends of the applicant. A job application is one of the rare times when brevity isn’t best. By making the application time-consuming, car wash operators can weed out the laziest applicants, Cavitt said. If an applicant won’t fill out a four-page application or does so sloppily, why would he go the extra mile for a customer at the end of a busy shift? And if an applicant can’t find a former employer, teacher or coach to speak well of him, then he likely isn’t a good fit for your business.