Customer service roles are common across all companies and involve managing inquiries, sales, problem-solving, and resolving customer complaints. The demand for skilled customer service professionals has resulted in a shortage of talent, making it challenging for employers to fill these positions.
To attract customer service professionals, including representatives, team leaders, and managers, it's crucial to have effective job descriptions that clearly communicate the required technical skills, soft skills, qualifications, and experience. However, poorly written job descriptions can result in low-quality applicants, resumes, and interviews.
To ensure you attract qualified candidates and save time filtering out unqualified ones, you can use a job description template when creating your job advert. We've provided examples for each role within customer services to help you find the right employees on the first try.
What Do Customer Services Do?
The job descriptions for your customer service team outline the various functions they perform and how they contribute to the overall success of your company. The duties of a Customer Service Representative are crucial for growth, reducing customer churn, and maintaining customer satisfaction. These duties include addressing customer complaints, responding to inquiries, facilitating sales, and resolving technical issues.
The specific responsibilities of a Customer Service Representative may vary depending on factors such as company type, size, product, or service. These responsibilities could include:
- Answering phone calls from customers
- Responding to customer emails and online chats
- Fulfilling customer requests
- Providing support to customers
- Selling company products
- Promoting company news
- Recording conversation details in computer systems
- Updating customer records
- Resolving service issues
- Acting as the primary point of contact for customers
- Solving complex technical problems
- Maximizing value for existing and new customers
- Fulfilling subscription feature requests
- Communicating with internal teams and answering employee questions (for Head Office or HR Customer Service Representatives)
- Handling employee misconduct (for Support Team Managers)
- Arranging product replacements for customers
- Cancelling services and processing refunds for customers
Customer Services Positions and Titles
The duties of customer services teams are conducted by employees in roles titled as:
- Customer Support Reps
- Customer Service Rep
- Customer Services Manager
- Customer Support Team Leader
- Customer Success Officer
- Senior Customer Service Representative
Customer Services Responsibilities and Duties
The responsibilities of a customer service role are crucial and high-priority, and are typically used to evaluate the performance of customer service employees. Handling incoming calls and inquiries efficiently, ensuring customer satisfaction, and generating sales leads are among the top priorities.
The duties and responsibilities of a customer service position may include:
- Attending team meetings for customer service
- Responding to customer inquiries via email and online chat
- Continuously learning about the company's products
- Assisting customers with refunds or cancellations
- Completing administrative tasks
- Handling service issues
- Serving as the primary point of contact for customers and maintaining open communication channels
- Fulfilling subscription feature requests
- Answering incoming phone calls promptly
- Responding to customer questions and queries
- Effectively resolving customer complaints and issues
- Assessing customers and promoting the company's products and services
- Completing sales or passing leads to the sales team
- Updating customer records and account information
- Processing payments and customer orders
- Ensuring customer satisfaction remains high
- Handling staff misconduct (for contact center managers)
- Handling warranty issues and arranging product replacements
While these duties may seem generic, you can make them more engaging and meaningful by specifying how they should be accomplished. For example, "You will resolve customer complaints by following communication procedures and recommending appropriate solutions."
Essential Customer Services Skills
Whether you run a small or large business, having customer service skills is vital. That's why it's crucial to ensure that your recruitment process helps you hire candidates with the necessary experience, traits, and abilities.
To ensure that your customer support representatives can perform their duties and provide an outstanding customer experience, your frontline staff should possess skills such as:
- Attentiveness during customer interactions, ensuring customer satisfaction and the ability to build sustainable relationships
- Good listening skills, active listening, and hearing the customer's voice
- Good communication skills, including written communication and open and interactive communication
- Motivational leadership skills (for manager and crisis management positions)
- Troubleshooting problems
- Taking ownership to ensure timely resolution
- Decision-making, such as when to escalate an issue to a customer support team manager
- Familiarity with customer support software, including CRM and Microsoft Excel
- Technical knowledge for resolving service issues or directing callers to the appropriate internal teams
- Multitasking, including using great listening skills while typing or researching an answer
- Attention to detail and detail-oriented
- Proactive questioning and asking for feedback from customers
- Commitment to meeting agreed-upon deadlines with customers
- Selling skills
- Interpersonal abilities
- Time management
- Teamwork and collaboration
- Empathy and compassion
- Numeracy
- Problem-solving skills
- Objectivity
- Target-driven
- Adaptable
- Presentation skills (for team leaders and managers)
- Foreign language skills (an advantage)
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment
By seeking out candidates with these skills, you can build a team that is well-equipped to handle the demands of customer service and help your business thrive.
Customer Services Education and Qualifications
The necessary education and qualifications for a customer service representative vary depending on the level of seniority and key responsibilities. They might include:
- Bachelor's or Master's Degree (for leadership roles)
- College or High School Diploma, such as a Level 1 Certificate in Customer Service or Level 2 Certificate in Contact Centre Operations
- Proficiency in computer CRM systems
- Technical knowledge of a service or product
Customer Services Training and Experience
Having prior experience in a customer service role is a valuable asset for a competent customer service representative. Additionally, completion of a Customer Service Intermediate or Advanced Apprenticeship might indicate that the individual has undergone relevant training.
Frequently Asked Questions about Customer Services Job Descriptions
Here we answer your customer services job description frequently asked questions.