How to Become a Customer Service Representative

Customer service representatives (CSRs) play a vital role in ensuring customer satisfaction and building strong relationships between businesses and their clients. While the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a small decline in the number of CSR jobs over the next 10 years due to automation, it does note that in-house customer service teams will become more popular as companies try to differentiate themselves or need to handle complex inquiries. Because of this, becoming a customer service rep can be a great career choice for people who want to help others. If you have excellent communication skills and enjoy solving problems, a career as a customer service representative might be the perfect fit for you.

What Does a Customer Service Rep Do?

As a customer service representative, your primary responsibility is to assist customers and address their inquiries, concerns, or complaints. Here are some common job duties you can expect in this role:

Answering inquiries and resolving issues via phone, email, chat, or in person
Providing product information and educating customers
Building relationships with customers
Maintaining customer satisfaction
Processing transactions
Maintaining records on customer interactions
Managing and escalating complicated issues to supervisors

Your responsibilities may also depend on the industry or company you’re working at. For example, if you work for a company that develops software, you’ll likely spend more time helping customers with their accounts. Meanwhile, a CSR at a utility company will be helping with outages, and a CSR at a big box store will be helping customers locate items or handling returns. Take this into consideration when applying to customer service jobs. Knowing what you’re most comfortable with will help you narrow down what kind of CSR you want to be and focus your search.

Customer Service Representative Career Path

A career as a customer service representative can lead to various opportunities for growth and advancement within the field. Most entry-level representatives are the ones handling general inquiries and providing basic support. However, when you gain enough experience and expertise in specific product lines or services, you may be promoted to a more senior level where you’ll take on more complex customer interactions and mentor junior team members. Then, depending on the size or type of the company, gaining more experience can lead to being promoted to one of the following:

Team lead or supervisor. You’ll assume a leadership role, overseeing a team of customer service representatives, monitoring performance, and ensuring service quality.
Customer service manager. Following a supervisory role, or if your customer service department doesn’t have separate teams, you’ll take on managerial responsibilities. That means coordinating departmental operations, implementing strategies for improving customer satisfaction, and working with other departments.
Specialized roles. You may be able to branch into specialized areas such as technical support, account management, quality assurance, or training.

Highest Education Level

Customer Service Reps offer the following education background

Bachelor's Degree (30.9%)

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

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

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%)

Requirements to Become a Customer Service Rep

As a CSR, you are the primary point of contact between a customer and the company. That means most employers are looking for candidates with soft skills like good communication and problem-solving abilities. Not only must you be able to answer questions clearly and concisely, but you also need to be able to remain calm when faced with an unhappy or aggressive customer. Time management and proficiency with computers or phone systems are also highly desired skills.

In terms of education requirements, for most CSR roles, a high school diploma or equivalent is typically required. However, some employers will prefer or require a college degree for specialized industries or products.

Take a look at the other trending skills employers look for when hiring CSRs.

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How to Write a Customer Service Rep Resume

While a resume that stands out and impresses hiring managers is always good to have, creating a resume for entry-level jobs like customer service reps. If you don’t have a lot of professional experience to showcase, how can you demonstrate you have the skills necessary to perform the job? Drawing from other areas of your life, like school, volunteer work, or hobbies can help a lot in this situation. For example, volunteering shows you’re passionate about helping people. Alternatively, if you do have past jobs you can put on your resume but they aren’t related to customer service, highlight your transferable skills like communication and time management.

An important strategy to keep in mind when writing a customer service rep resume is to include keywords from the job ad in your resume. Doing so will get you past an automated Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and into the hands of a hiring manager. iHire’s Job X-Ray and iScore tools are helpful for determining what keywords the employer put in the job ad and which ones your resume is missing. Use those tools to improve your resume and increase your chance of getting the job.

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