Customer Service Representative Interact with customers to provide basic or scripted information in response to routine inquiries about products and services. May handle and resolve general complaints. Excludes individuals whose duties are primarily installation, sales, repair, and technical support.
Customer Service Representative is Also Know as
In different settings, Customer Service Representative is titled as
- Account Representative
- Call Center Representative
- Client Services Representative
- Customer Care Representative (CCR)
- Customer Service Agent
- Customer Service Representative (CSR)
- Customer Service Specialist
- Customer Support Representative (Customer Support Rep)
- Guest Service Agent
- Member Services Representative (Member Services Rep)
Education and Training of Customer Service Representative
Customer Service Representative is categorized in Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Customer Service Representative
Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is usually needed. For example, a teller would benefit from experience working directly with the public.
Education Required for Customer Service Representative
These occupations usually require a high school diploma.
Degrees Related to Customer Service Representative
- Bachelor in Receptionist
- Associate Degree Courses in Receptionist
- Masters Degree Courses in Receptionist
- Bachelor in Customer Service Support/Call Center/Teleservice O
- Associate Degree Courses in Customer Service Support/Call Center/Teleservice O
- Masters Degree Courses in Customer Service Support/Call Center/Teleservice O
Training Required for Customer Service Representative
Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Customer Service Representative in different industries are
- Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel
- Insurance Claims and Policy Processing Clerks
- Receptionists and Information Clerks
- Telemarketers
- Billing and Posting Clerks
- Brokerage Clerks
- New Accounts Clerks
- Order Clerks
- Bill and Account Collectors
- Credit Authorizers, Checkers, and Clerks
- Office Clerks, General
- Counter and Rental Clerks
- First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers
- Switchboard Operators, Including Answering Service
- First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers
- Telephone Operators
- Eligibility Interviewers, Government Programs
- Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive
- Insurance Sales Agents
- Correspondence Clerks
What Do Customer Service Representative do?
- Keep records of customer interactions or transactions, recording details of inquiries, complaints, or comments, as well as actions taken.
- Resolve customers' service or billing complaints by performing activities such as exchanging merchandise, refunding money, or adjusting bills.
- Check to ensure that appropriate changes were made to resolve customers' problems.
- Contact customers to respond to inquiries or to notify them of claim investigation results or any planned adjustments.
- Refer unresolved customer grievances to designated departments for further investigation.
- Determine charges for services requested, collect deposits or payments, or arrange for billing.
- Complete contract forms, prepare change of address records, or issue service discontinuance orders, using computers.
- Obtain and examine all relevant information to assess validity of complaints and to determine possible causes, such as extreme weather conditions that could increase utility bills.
- Solicit sales of new or additional services or products.
- Review insurance policy terms to determine whether a particular loss is covered by insurance.
- Review claims adjustments with dealers, examining parts claimed to be defective, and approving or disapproving dealers' claims.
- Compare disputed merchandise with original requisitions and information from invoices and prepare invoices for returned goods.
- Order tests that could determine the causes of product malfunctions.
- Recommend improvements in products, packaging, shipping, service, or billing methods and procedures to prevent future problems.
- Confer with customers by telephone or in person to provide information about products or services, take or enter orders, cancel accounts, or obtain details of complaints.
Qualities of Good Customer Service Representative
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
Tools Used by Customer Service Representative
- Autodialing systems
- Automatic call distribution ACD system
- Calling line identification equipment
- Cash registers
- Desktop computers
- Dialed number identification systems DNIS
- Global positioning system GPS receivers
- Multi-line telephone systems
- On hold players
- Personal digital assistants PDA
- Predictive dialers
- Scanners
- Voice broadcasting systems
- Wireless telephone headsets
- Wireless telephone systems
Technology Skills required for Customer Service Representative
- Active Data Online WebChat
- Adobe Acrobat
- Adobe Creative Cloud software
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- ADP Workforce Now
- Airtable
- Apple Keynote
- Apple macOS
- Applied Systems Vision
- AS/400 Database
- Astute Solutions PowerCenter
- Austin Logistics CallSelect
- Austin Logistics CallTech
- Austin Logistics Valeo
- Avidian Technologies Prophet
- Blackbaud The Raiser's Edge
- Citrix cloud computing software
- Customer account management software
- Customer complaint ticketing management software
- Customer relationship management CRM software
- Customer service and support software
- Customer service knowledge generation software
- Data entry software
- Database software
- Delphi Technology
- Dropbox
- DSC Pacer Interactive Voice Response System
- eStara Softphone
- FaceTime
- FileMaker Pro
- Fund accounting software
- Google Docs
- Google Drive
- Google Meet
- Google Sites
- GroupMe
- Handheld computer device software
- Healthcare common procedure coding system HCPCS
- Hosted Support ezSupport Pro
- Human resource management software HRMS
- IBM Cognos Impromptu
- IBM Domino
- IBM Notes
- IBM Power Systems software
- Intuit QuickBooks
- iShip
- j2 Global Communications onebox
- Kronos Workforce Timekeeper
- LexisNexis
- LogMeIn GoToMeeting
- Lynk Everest
- Main Street Softworks Monetra
- McAfee
- Medical condition coding software
- Medical procedure coding software
- MEDITECH software
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Microsoft Dynamics GP
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Exchange
- Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft OneNote
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Publisher
- Microsoft SharePoint
- Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft Windows
- Microsoft Word
- Multi-channel contact center software
- Nearpod
- NetSuite ERP
- NortonLifeLock cybersecurity software
- Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition
- Oracle Database
- Oracle E-Business Suite Financials
- Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
- Oracle PeopleSoft
- Oracle Taleo
- Padlet
- Parature eRealtime
- Parature eTicket
- Poll Everywhere
- Sage 50 Accounting
- Sage MAS 200 ERP
- Sales force automation software
- Salesforce software
- Salesforce.com Salesforce CRM
- SAP Business Objects
- SAP Crystal Reports
- SAP software
- ShoreTel
- Skype
- Slack
- Social media sites
- Stamps.com software
- SugarSync
- Tax software
- Telemation e-CRM
- Timpani Chat
- Timpani Contact Center
- Timpani Email
- Unified messaging software
- Virtual private networking VPN software
- Voice over internet protocol VoIP system software
- Yardi software
- YouTube
- Zoom