How to Hire a Customer Service Representative

In today’s competitive business world, exceptional customer service has become a crucial differentiating factor for success. A positive customer experience can significantly improve your brand, customer retention, and overall growth, while a negative experience can potentially turn customers away for life. To ensure your customers receive the support they deserve, hiring a skilled and dedicated customer service representative is essential.

But finding a good customer service rep (CSR) is easier said than done due to the wide variety of interactions they’ll have to handle every day. While some customers will have easy questions, there will also be some who have major complaints or issues and being able to go from one to the next effortlessly while still remaining professional, courteous, and helpful is no small skill. Whether you’re a large company with an established brand, or a small business trying to grow, a good customer service representative can make all the difference.

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know to hire a customer service rep who can take your business to the next level, from their responsibilities, necessary skills, average salary, and more.

Responsibilities of a Customer Service Representative

At its core, a customer service rep’s role is to provide support and maintain positive customer relationships. The average customer isn’t likely to talk to your software developers or HR department, but they will be talking to CSRs in some form or another, meaning these employees are the face and voice of your business. Their day mainly consists of answering questions, solving problems, and providing general support. Here are some common responsibilities associated with this role:

Answering customer inquiries via phone, email, chat, or in person
Troubleshooting customer issues
Educating customers and providing support for your product or service
Maintaining customer satisfaction
Managing complaints
Escalating issues to management as needed

Depending on the nature or size of your business, some CSRs will also be responsible for:

Processing returns or refunds
Upselling and cross-selling products and services
Providing training to new CSRs

Their primary duties will also depend on the industry you’re in. For example, representatives who work for SaaS companies may answer customers’ questions about their accounts, representatives who work for utility companies may help customers with outages, and retail store CSRs may need to help customers locate items.

Highest Education Level

Customer Service Reps offer the following education background

Bachelor's Degree (30.8%)

High School or GED (27.4%)

Associate's Degree (16.1%)

Vocational Degree or Certification (12.9%)

Master's Degree (7.9%)

Some College (2.9%)

Some High School (1.0%)

Doctorate Degree (0.9%)

Qualifications / Skills

The following top skills are often required or desired to land a CSR position

Food Service Management, One Call Resolution, Call Center Experience, Inbound, Service Sales, Payment Processing, First In, First Out, Willingness To Learn, Order Entry, Asset Protection, Sales Leadership, Customer Support, Baking, Point-of-Sale System, Courteous

Average Work Experience

Here's a breakdown of the years of experience offered by CSRs

1-2 years (42.9%)

Less than 1 year (38.0%)

None (6.9%)

2-4 years (6.8%)

4-6 years (4.1%)

6-8 years (1.1%)

8-10 years (0.2%)

Required Skills to Be a Customer Service Representative

Because their main duty is to support customers, there are some skills that a CSR must have in order to be successful. Those skills include:

Excellent communication: CSRs should be able to convey information clearly, listen actively, and adapt their communication style to suit different customers.
Empathy and patience: Demonstrating empathy towards customers’ concerns and maintaining patience, especially during challenging situations, is crucial.
Problem solving abilities: Strong problem solving skills enable CSRs to identify root causes, analyze situations, and find appropriate solutions.
Multitasking and time management: CSRs often deal with multiple inquiries simultaneously and they need to be able to handle customer requests efficiently without a drop in the quality of service.
Strong attention to detail: Some questions may be complex or involve many moving parts, and keeping track of everything is necessary for a satisfactory resolution.

When it comes to the level of education needed, most customer service reps have either a high school diploma or bachelor’s degree. And because these positions are sometimes considered entry-level, most candidates will only have up to two years of experience. You can see other common skills and certifications in the supplementary widgets on this page.

Hiring the best customer service rep means you may have to go above that number, especially if your area has a higher cost of living. To see salary data for your location, sign in or create an account and head to our Salary Research tool.

Sample Customer Service Representative Job Ad

To attract the best customer service talent, your job ad must stand out from the crowd. That means not only having the basics of what makes a good job ad like a brief job title, a summary of your company, and the responsibilities and qualifications, but you should also add anything that makes this position or your company unique. Including the salary and any benefits you offer is also recommended. Take a look at the sample ad below to help you get started.

Customer Service Representative

[Your company name] is seeking a Customer Success Representative to join our team. We are growing at a rapid pace and seek conscientious employees to help us continue to thrive in this exciting market.

We’d like to hear from you if you are energized by working in a face-paced, dynamic call-center environment.

What You Will Do:

After being trained on our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, you’ll provide customer service and support through direct interaction with end-users of [product].
Provide excellent customer service via phone, email, and through the CRM platform.

What You Will Bring:

Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate effectively with customers and co-workers.
Willingness to problem solve and resolve conflicts.
Professional and friendly phone voice.
Knowledge of Outlook or other email programs.
Knowledge of customer relationship management systems.
Typing skills of 60 wpm.

Why You’ll Love [Company name]:

We offer a competitive salary plus an exceptional benefits package including generous PTO, flextime, comprehensive health benefits, professional development opportunities, matching 401(k), and more!
Enjoy a collaborative, fun, and flexible work environment.

Who We Are:

[Your company summary]

Interview Questions to Ask a Customer Service Representative

When interviewing for a customer service rep position, it’s important to determine how the candidate will react to different customers and the various issues they may face while on the job. Asking situational interview questions are a great way to do this, and mixing in some behavioral interview questions to see how they’ve reacted to similar circumstances in the past can also help. Use these example questions to find the best customer service rep for your team:

How do you explain a difficult concept to a customer?
Tell me about a time when you turned an unhappy customer into a delighted customer.
What do you do when you don’t know how to help a customer?
What would you do if a customer complained about a widely known problem with the company’s product?
How do you stay updated on product knowledge and industry trends to better assist customers?
Can you explain how you would handle a customer complaint that cannot be immediately resolved?
How do you adapt your communication style to accommodate different types of customers?
How do you manage multiple customer inquiries or requests simultaneously?
Can you share an example of a time when you went above and beyond to provide exceptional customer service?