To land a job in customer service, you need to showcase your best skills to employers. Customer service involves both technical and interpersonal skills. This makes a diverse skillset all the more important! In this guide, we will uncover the best customer service skills to include on a resume. Plus, we will provide you with tips and tricks for formatting.
Customer service is a vast industry spanning many different forms of business.
From answering customer calls to building customer relationships, there are many responsibilities involved.
Aside from the general Customer Service Representative, other common examples of jobs within customer service include:
Essentially, any job that deals with working directly with customers falls under the customer service umbrella.
When applying for a job in customer service, showing your ability to work well with people is key.
Including skills on a resume allows you to showcase your best strengths to employers.
By adding specifically customer service skills, you can demonstrate your most relevant abilities according to the job you are applying to.
You never want to include skills just for the sake of it.
It is imperative to always tailor your skills to match the requirements listed in the job description.
Moreover, you should always be honest in what skills you include.
Never list a skill you don’t actually have!
Need help brainstorming skills? We have a free guide with 100+ Key Skills for a Resume in 2021 (with Examples for Any Job) to help you out.
Before you can determine the best customer service skills to include on your resume, you need to understand the two main types of skills:
When writing out your skills on a resume, it is important to include both soft and hard skills.
For customer service, you should always take the time to plan out the skills you want to include.
By making a large list you can then narrow it down to the most relevant and best ones.
Here are our top 10 soft skills for customer service to consider adding to your resume:
Here is a list of 10 hard skills for customer service to use on a resume:
No matter whether they are hard or soft skills, all your skills should be selected according to the job.
In fact, tailoring your resume for the job is crucial for impressing employers!
Read our career advice article on how to Tailor Your Resume to Any Job in 4 Easy Steps to learn more.
When describing your customer service skills on a resume, it is important to indicate your level of proficiency.
Generally, there are three levels commonly used on resumes:
We recommend only including your very best skills on a resume.
As such, you should aim to mainly include skills that fall into either the expert or intermediate categories.
To include customer service skills on a resume, there are two main formatting options:
Oftentimes, the best approach is to combine these two formatting options.
Including soft skills in your work experience section allows you to include greater context and explanation.
Comparatively, hard skills need less explanation and can benefit from being place in a separate section.
Here are two quick breakdowns for these formatting options:
Incorrect:
Work Experience
Customer Service Representative, Whole Foods
April 2018 – May 2020
· Good communication skills
· Worked closely with customers
· Learned better closing tactics
Why It’s Wrong: In this example, the bullet points are too vague and provide little information about the person’s responsibilities.
Adding in skills to your work experience section should add extra value, not detract from the descriptive nature of the section.
Correct:
Work Experience
Customer Service Representative, Whole Foods
April 2018 – May 2020
· Communicated daily with customers through the call center
· Fostered loyal customer relationships through an empathetic approach
· Developed a strong closing ability and increased sales by 15 percent
In this corrected example, the skills clearly tie into the person’s qualifications.
The information given is much more insightful into the applicant’s work ethic and skill set.
ProTip: When describing skills in your work experience section, make sure to use active language. For help in doing so, take a look at our list of 350+ Action Verbs to Make Your Resume More Effective in 2021.
Incorrect:
Customer Service Skills
· Caring for customers
· Answering the phone
· Helping customers with returns
· Using Microsoft Excel and other programs
Why It’s Wrong: This example fails to use strong skill keywords.
Additionally, it is not inherently bad to include extra words in a skills section.
However, these extra words should add value, not just take up space in your word count.
Correct:
Customer Service Skills
· Empathizing with Customers’ Specific Needs
· Call Center Telecommunication
· Conflict Resolution for Customer Returns
· Microsoft Office Suite
In this corrected example, the extra words being used give the skill greater detail and specificity.
Do you need more help writing your ideal resume? Check out our guide on the 20 Best Resume Writing Tips and Tricks for 2021 (with a Free Checklist)!
Customer service is a massive industry with many employment opportunities.
To heighten your chances of landing a job in this field, focusing on your related skills is key.
Here are our 5 main takeaways for listing customer service skills on a resume:
To learn more about creating the perfect resume in 2021, check out our many free resume guides and career advice articles!
Ed is a co-founder of Easy Resume. His background in scaling teams at tech startups over the last decade has given him extensive experience and knowledge around how to hire top talent and build successful teams. He enjoys mentoring, coaching, and helping others reach their career goals. When he's not writing about career-related advice, he's playing with his dog, Lilo, or going on long hikes in upstate New York.
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