Customer Service Representative Resume Sample & Writing Guide

Seeking a position as a Customer Service Representative? It is essential first to view an example of a top-notch Customer Service Representative resume sample before you get started. You want to make sure your resume will stand out from other applications by being both informative and compelling to read. Without bombarding the recruiter or hiring manager with irrelevant information.

How to make a Resume Guideline for Customer Service Representative Roles:

Customer Service Representative Resumes

Or download these examples in PDF at the bottom of this page for free

Customer Service Rep Resume Guide:

Resume Sections

1. Contact Information: Name, Address, Email, Phone Number, Driver's license.

2. Profile Summary: This introduction to your resume must make an impact on the reader. Include a broad overview of your background, years of industry experience, qualifications and the industry areas of interest. You should be specific and state which job you are applying to (1-3 sentences max).

3. Qualifications Summary: Provide accurate details about the certifications and qualifications you have completed with the institution, qualification name, and dates. Don’t forget to include the qualifications you are currently completing. For some Customer Service Representative roles, a degree at Bachelor or Associate level is required like in Banking or Engineering. For others, no formal qualification apart from a high school diploma is needed, but the short courses, workshops, and in-house training you have received should then be listed to provide more credibility to your resume.

4. Relevant Customer Service Experience: Clearly state your employment history by providing details regarding the last ten years of experience up until your current position. Use punchy sentences with bullet points to list your most important customer service activities. Customer Service Representatives jobs exist in every imaginable industry and for an unlimited number of products, services, and solutions. You have to be specific. State the nature of the product type or solution you have experience in regarding customer relations. Also include the industry sector for example banking, insurance, and telecommunications.

5. Other Employment Experience: This will include permanent work history outside of direct customer service. You should also list temporary and vocational jobs where you were actively dealing with clients or customers. Only elaborate on these with job descriptions if you have less than five years of customer service experience. Otherwise, just list job title company and duration as to make sure there are no gaps in your employment history. This section is especially relevant if you are on at entry level or in the process of making a career change from a different field, for example, administration support into customer service. It would help if you revealed your ‘’relationship management experience” gained unofficially while for instance in a vocational or temporary job to showcase your abilities to deal with clients and solve their issues.

6. Skills Summary/Key Skills: Incorporate keywords from the job posting and your specific skill set. This adds much-needed credibility to your resume.

7. Education/Licenses/Certifications/Relevant Coursework/Training: Start with your formal degrees and post-school diplomas or accreditations. List any professional development courses, workshops or programs you completed that better prepared you to work in the servicing field such as problem-solving, follow up techniques, negotiation tactics, regulatory industry training, and licensing examinations.

What to Highlight

Regardless of your experience as a Customer Service Representative, there are a few vital things that recruiters and managers need to know about you to ensure that you are the right fit for their team.
The first aspect to highlight is the scope of your customer service tenure in product type or industry area. There are millions of businesses out there with every imaginable product or solution. It would be best if you were specific about the product type or service offering you have experience in.

Secondly, a Customer Service Representative may be liaising with customers via telephone, face-to-face or by online messaging, live chat or email correspondence. Describe your methods of interaction and the tools and platforms used to facilitate your communication with clients. For example, the types of CRM systems you can work on, for instance, Austin Logistics CallTech; Blackbaud The Raiser's Edge; Salesforce Software, Telemation, e-CRM

Next, discuss the purpose of your role in more detail. Customer Service Representatives deal with customers and clients to provide information in response to inquiries about products and services and to handle and resolve complaints. These roles are often split into three main client categories: new customers, existing customers and outgoing customers canceling their subscriptions called retention clients. For the latter sales experience and negotiation skills come in handy, because the aim is to retain the client by offering them an alternative or cheaper product as a means to retain them.

Once connections are made online, in person or via phone, the Customer Service Representative will explain how the specific product or service can meet the needs of the customer in question, A customer service representative spends his or her days answering consumers' questions, resolving their complaints, taking their orders and signing them up for new services. These discussions can happen using physical or online presentations. Again, be specific regarding the tools you are utilizing to create and facilitate these presentations (PowerPoint, Zoom, Airtable, WebEx)

*Cool Tip for a stellar resume

You can create an excellent first impression by being specific about your main duties providing metrics achieved against production targets and goals. For example, exceeded the target number of calls taken in a day by 20%. Reach query resolution goal of 90% every week. Manage to retain 15% of customer cancellations by signing them up for alternative services.

Make sure to include the following details:

• Your GPA scores if you have completed a bachelor or associates degree (if higher than 3.5).
• Also mention the sales administration platforms and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms you are familiar with like Sage, SalesForce, SAP, Oracle, and Vanguard.
• Telephone or Live Chat support is often a 24hour gig, and shift work is typical in this industry. Indicate your availability during weekdays and also weekends.
• Companies are progressing more towards the gig economy in terms of remote workers and freelancers. If you are available for remote work, you could apply for roles in different time zones too.

Career Summary & Examples

Hiring managers have large numbers of hundreds of resumes to go screen and limited time to read them all in detail. Keep your career summary concise and to the point. Put the most relevant information first to capture their attention while they’re quickly scanning your resume. They want to see immediately that you can interact with clients, even the annoyed and angry ones!

Start your career summary with your years of experience in the industry and the primary duties you performed. Use the job description as your guide when deciding on which tasks to add. For instance, if the job you are applying to highlights dealing with volumes of calls or traveling to client premises, use those same words and phrases. The more your resume relates to the job description of keywords, the better fit you will seem.

Next, add a line that showcases any outstanding qualities that will add value to the company. A hiring manager would be interested to know if you have “strong people skills, creative engagement abilities, excellent negotiation abilities and a flair for query resolution.” It’s important to note that these qualities should be proven with examples in the professional experience section to re-enforce your message.

Finally, end your summary with your educational degrees/diplomas and any certified courses or professional memberships you may have that are pertinent to the job.

Two Examples of different career summaries:

Summary Example 1

‘Energetic Customer Service Representative with three years’ work tenure in resolving complex customer inquiries. Passionate about building sustainable customer relationships, driving brand loyalty, and increasing customer engagement.'

Summary Example 2

‘Engaging Senior Customer Service Representative with 15+ years of experience in a fast-paced call center environment. Skilled at transforming irate customer feedback into actionable solutions that drive revenue, increase customer loyalty, and improve processes.'

Customer Service Representative Job Descriptions Examples

An employer would expect to see the following proven foundational duties and skill sets within an applicant’s resume, depending on educational level and career stage. Below are a few examples for face to face, telephone, and live chat customer service roles

A Customer Service Representative in a Face-to-Face setting may:

• Continuously build up knowledge about company products and services
• Build credibility with customers by engaging with them in an approachable, friendly, and professional manner, to deliver service excellence and cultivate sustainable relationships
• Respond promptly to customer inquiries regarding quotes, orders, status requests, complaints, product returns, and warranties
• Keep daily recordings, and log tickets for query resolutions in the electronic database
• Identify and address customer needs with the aim of complete client satisfaction
• Provide expert answers to questions about products, pricing, and availability, while presenting the value of products and services to customers

A Customer Service Representative in a Telephone-based/Call Center environment in the Banking Industry may:

• Handle inbound calls from credit card cardholders
• Assist cardholders with account queries, billing issues, payment arrangements, financial planning and service promotions
• Help customers with credit line increases/decrease inquiries, disputes, and account education
• Collaborate with clientele to resolve credit card disputes, written or verbal
• Allocate payments directly into customers’ accounts, complying to customer and company specifications
• Maintain and exceed the bank’s established quality, compliance, and customer service standards
• Document each customer's account accessed with the information provided including the outcome of the call

A Customer Service Representative in a Live Chat may:

• Handle inbound message queries from clients via the live chat platform
• Assist subscribers with account queries, billing issues, payments
• Aim to solve any problems that may arise, by responding to messages within 60 seconds
• Answer customer questions promptly and if the queries are more complex, update them with feedback and anticipated waiting time
• Follow set out protocols to they must listen carefully to resolve the issue or answer the question
• Document written chats and also the results categorized as query solved or query escalated to call center department
• Provide real-time support and give clients helpful links to Q&A sites to assist them with their issues
• Offer clients access to company URL’s for extra information about new products and services
• Keep track of general patterns when communicating with customers and sharing these with the service department

Accomplishments

You may be tempted to copy and paste the list of duties you performed under your accomplishment section. The drawback to doing this, though, is that you won’t stand out from the other applicants with similar experience.

Your goal is to think about what sets you apart, what you are most proud of, or what you achieved in your previous roles. Now communicate these through action-packed statements that grab the reader’s attention.

Examples:

Flat, Simple Duty:

• Answer customer questions promptly

Accomplishment Statement:

• Aim to solve any problems that may arise, by responding to messages within 60 seconds, thereby improving customer service ratings by 25%

Quantifying Your Resume

When writing your resume, if you can answer the questions, “How much?” or “How many?” For the customer service representative roles, the focus should be on showcasing your ability to please customers and communicate all types of information. Metrics can easily prove the impact of your work, and this is an excellent way to take your resume from good to great. Include that number. For instance:

• How many inbound calls do you answer every week?
• What is your query to resolution ratio?
• What is your monthly retention figure?

Example 1
On a monthly basis, an average of 25 – 38 customers receive assistance to refinance finance their mortgages, due to personal financial problems like layoffs or unforeseen health complications.

Example 2
Engage with 80 clients per day via the live messaging system and resolve 90% of queries.

Education

The education section forms an integral part of your resume. In short, indicate What, Where and When regarding your qualifications, certifications or industry licenses obtained. The name of your qualification, institution, and date of completion is more than sufficient. Unless you are a graduate with limited working experience, there is no need to include major subjects or course curriculum topics.

Remember to include current qualifications you are in the process of completing. Regarding courses and certifications, discretion and relevance must be considered.

Completed Secondary and Tertiary Education must be listed as follows:

Start with the commencement date and completion date for diplomas, associate degrees, and bachelor degrees. For courses, you can list the date of completion. Next comes the full name of the qualification, then the full name of the institution and then the City or abbreviated State name. List your high school diploma details similarly, but only include this when you have less than five years of working experience.

Here is an example of a Customer Service Representative education section for someone with more than five years’ experience:

2006 – 2007 Customer Service Diploma, Udemy, Online
Course Curriculum: Telephone Etiquette, Conflict Resolution Strategies, Negotiation Tactics

2010 – Certified Client Service Specialist (CCSS), CCPC Global, TX

2006-2008 Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, Chicago State University, IL

If you have less than five years’ experience, have a look at the example below:

2016-2018 BA in Service Management – Mass-Market Retail Enterprise Management, Ashford University, CA
GPA: 3.8
Majors: Sales Management, Retail Administration
Minors: Retail Merchandising, Retail Advertising, Retail Pricing Accounting
Accolades: Top student

2014 – Financial Customer Service Representative, Inres College, CA Coursework Requirements
Course Curriculum: Financial Markets, Risk Management, Insurance Legislation, Consumer Finance

2013 – Certified Client Service Professional (CCSP), Oakload College, IN

2012 – Chris Jones High School, High School Diploma, Tampa, FL

Skills

Although the customer relations field requires specific technical skills, employers also consider soft skills. These are the personality traits or skills that indicate to your fit as a Customer Service Representative who will add value by meeting set out targets, has adequate knowledge, and sufficient experience to engage and attract customers. Incorporate these into your summary, or profile, and into your accomplishment statements.

Technical Skills Examples

• Educational Attainment: A university degree is not generally required to become a Customer Service Representative unless you are in a very technical industry such as Engineering or Information Technology. A financial customer service representative needs to obtain licensing depending on the product type they assist clients with for instance personal finance, unit trusts, insurance or healthcare. A certification like CSP – Certified Sales Professional comes in handy if you want to land a job at a Fortune 500 company.
• Technical Aptitude: Customer Service Representatives need to work with high call volumes in fast-paced working environments. Excellent analytical skills are required to solve problems. Time management and accurate record keeping are additional vital skills to have. Superior telephone etiquette is a must. Product knowledge and troubleshooting goes hand in hand
• Other Technical Skills: Fast Typing Speed, Complaint Resolution, Service-based Selling, Online Quotation Generators, Cloud-Based Collaboration Platforms, CRM Systems, Quality Control, Report Writing, Feedback Mechanisms.

Soft Skill Examples

• Negotiation
• Detail Orientated
• Integrity
• Initiative
• Empathy.
• Self-Control
• Networking
• Persuasion
• Persistence
• Social Perceptiveness
• Service Orientation
• Strategic Thinking
• Creative
• Dedicated
• Realistic
• Conscientious
• Time Management

Qualifications/Certifications associated with Customer Service Representatives

Action Verbs for your Customer Service Representative Resume

Professional Information of Customer Service Representatives

Sectors: Various
Career Type: Service, Customer queries, Client Service, Client Relations
Person type: Negotiator, Engager, Assistant, Fixer, Problem Solver
Education levels: High School Diploma to Masters’ Degree
Salary indication: Per hour rate at $13.86. Annual salary $32 980
Labor market: Estimated 5%-9% growth between 2016 – 2026
Organizations: Unlimited

Customer Service Representative Resume Example