Phone agent vs. chat agent: which does your business need?

Hire for the channel your customers already use when something matters to them. If they call when a problem is urgent or personal, you need someone calm and clear on the phone. If they write while they shop or work, you need a quick, careful writer who can handle several chats at once. Some businesses need both, but not always in the same person.

Start with what your customers already do

Before you write a job post, look at the last month of customer contacts. For each one, note four things: how it came in, what it was about, how urgent it was, and what time it arrived. A simple spreadsheet is enough.

Then answer these questions.

What do customers ask? Quick facts, order status, links and step-by-step help suit chat. Problems that need a lot of back-and-forth, or that carry strong feelings, often come by phone.

How urgent is it? When a delay costs the customer something today, they tend to call. A leaking pipe or a cracked tooth is a phone problem. "Can I change my delivery address?" can wait a few minutes in a chat.

When do contacts come in? If most arrive during your opening hours, one person may cover everything. If many come in the evening or on weekends, you may need a second shift, or an agent in another time zone.

How many come in at your busiest hour? A phone agent handles one call at a time. A chat agent can handle more than one conversation at once. If your busy hour brings many short questions, chat lets one person cover more of them.

What do customers pick when they have both? If you already offer phone and chat, look at which one people use for which problem. That beats guessing.

How the skills differ

The two jobs look alike on paper. In practice they ask for different strengths.

What a phone agent needs

• A clear voice. Easy to understand on a poor line, at a steady pace.
• Calm in real time. There is no time to draft. They think and speak at once.
• Listening. They hear what the caller means, not only what they say, and repeat back key details like names, dates and numbers.
• Control of the call. They guide a chatty or upset caller to the point without being rude.
• Notes while talking. The next person should be able to read what happened.

What a chat agent needs

• Clear writing. Short, correct sentences, with the answer first.
• Speed. Quick replies and quick typing, without careless mistakes.
• Several chats at once. They switch between customers without mixing up names or details.
• Careful reading. They read the customer's message, your policy and a teammate's notes all the way through.
• Tone in text. Warm without being wordy, and firm without sounding cold.

What both need

• Honesty when they do not know the answer.
• Following your rules, even when a customer pushes.
• Knowing when to pass something to someone else.
• Care with private details.

A strong phone agent can be a weak writer, and a strong writer can freeze on a call. Test the skill the job needs, not the one that is easiest to test.

When a mix makes sense

A mix often fits a small business. Here are a few common setups.

• One person, low volume. One agent answers calls and chats. Decide in advance which comes first when both are busy. For example: phone first, because the caller is waiting live, with a short holding message for chats.
• Split by time. Phone during your opening hours, chat in the evening when calls stop.
• Chat first, phone for hard cases. The chat agent handles most questions and books a call for urgent or complex ones.
• Email in the gaps. A chat agent can answer email between chats.

One warning. A person on a call cannot answer chats. If one agent does both, set a rule for that moment: chats get an automatic "we will reply in a few minutes" message, or a second person covers them.

If one person will do both, test both skills. Do not assume a good talker writes well, or the other way around.

How to test each one in hiring

Testing a chat agent

Give a timed, realistic chat from your own business. Include an upset customer, a question they cannot answer, and a rule they must hold. If the job has several chats at once, test that too. Our guide to five chat tests to give before you hire a support agent walks through each one, with good and weak answers.

Watch for three things: the answer is correct, it is easy to read, and it came fast enough for your customers.

Testing a phone agent

Start in writing. A few questions about calls show judgment before you spend time on the phone. For example:

• "A caller is shouting about a bill. What is the first thing you say?"
• "A caller wants an answer you do not have. What do you do?"
• "How do you end a call with someone who keeps talking?"

Then call the people you pick and run a short practice call. You or a teammate plays the customer, using a real situation from your business. Tell them it is a role-play before you start.

Listen for:

• Clear speech at a steady pace.
• Whether they repeat back names, dates and numbers.
• Whether they stay calm when you push back.
• How they end the call, and whether the next step is clear.

For remote phone work, check the setup too. Ask them to call from the room they will work in, with the headset they will use. Background noise and a weak connection will reach your customers.

In a HireFlow customer service job, the chat practice step gives each applicant a realistic customer chat from your kind of business, with typing speed and reply time measured, and phone jobs get questions about calls in the written interview. It does not run a live practice call, so that step is yours. The interview guide it gives you for that call lists questions, what to listen for and red flags.

In short

• Look at a month of contacts: what they are about, how urgent, when they arrive and how many.
• Urgent, personal problems point to phone. Quick questions and high volume point to chat.
• Phone needs a clear voice and calm in real time. Chat needs clear writing, speed and several chats at once.
• A mix works when volume is low or contacts split by time of day. Set a rule for when both are busy.
• Test chat with a timed, realistic chat. Test phone with written questions about calls, then a short practice call you run yourself.