What does a customer service representative do?
Customer service representatives, also known as customer service agents, are responsible for addressing and promptly resolving client complaints. Customer service representatives communicate with clients via a range of platforms, including the phone, email, and social media, and make sure that all legitimate client concerns are addressed right away.
A support agent ensures that they take ownership and assist the client in having the seamless and ideal experience they are entitled to, regardless of whether it is a billing problem, a bug in your product, or just about any other issue. To ensure that prompt action is taken to resolve a specific problem, the support representatives also collaborate closely with teams from various departments.
In the past, call centers employed customer service representatives to mainly manage inbound calls, where clients would contact agents over the phone to solve their problems. Customer service as a function, however, is getting more recognition as a result of the expansion of digital channels and consumers’ preference for a brand’s overall experience over just product quality.
94% of customers say they’ll make another purchase from a brand if customer service encounters are easy. Businesses recognize the significant impact of customer service on retention and revenue. As a result, customer service representatives are given more responsibility for creating seamless customer experiences across a range of sectors, including e-commerce, healthcare, travel, banking, and insurance firms.
Duties and responsibilities of a customer service representative
When interacting with a customer, a customer support agent should be able to quickly understand the nature of their issue. Support staff members should be well-versed in the product or service, as this will enable them to provide the client with a solution as soon as possible. The customer support representative should learn to escalate complaints to the appropriate internal team(s) and follow up with them frequently for updates on the progress if the issue goes beyond their direct area of responsibility.
Here are all the major duties of a support representative.
1. Assume responsibility for client concerns
Customer support representatives must assume responsibility for the client’s issue and serve as the sole point of contact for all questions regarding the troubleshooting process, the anticipated time of resolution, and updates on the status of the work in progress.
2. Resolve issues and troubleshoot drives
A service representative must put the needs of the client first and go above and beyond to ensure that they have the best experience. Once a support ticket is assigned to them, they have to look into every avenue for resolving the issue and act promptly.
3. Report outstanding problems to the appropriate internal teams
There are frequent problems in customer support that require a high level of technical expertise or go beyond what a service representative can manage immediately. In these situations, the support representative must ensure that the issue is reported to the proper internal teams, who must then take the necessary steps to resolve it.
4. Gather timely and accurate client input
A help representative’s job description goes beyond merely solving a customer’s problem. Additionally, they must follow up with the customer to see if the answer was successful and to note any recommendations they may have for ways to make their experience even better.
5. Use knowledge materials as solutions
Every client issue is resolved with a useful learning opportunity for service representatives. To prevent similar issues from arising in the future, they should be able to record this knowledge in the form of help material or solution articles.
6. Learn how to use a support desk program
If your business uses specialized customer support software, all of the aforementioned duties can be simplified. Your customer service representatives should be able to rapidly learn how to use the helpdesk’s features and handle customer issues more efficiently.
What makes a good customer service representative?
Service representatives need to think quickly on their feet, excel at engaging customers in productive conversation, demonstrate mastery of the product or service, and maintain a positive attitude despite unfavorable customer interactions. These are some of the abilities that each help representative on your team needs to have.
1. Effective communication
While interacting with clients, service representatives ought to be friendly and sympathetic. They should have the patience to handle conversations skillfully regardless of the customer’s level and excellent listening skills to understand what the customer desires.
2. Sound technological expertise
Having a support representative who is knowledgeable about your product and conversant with the newest advancements in customer support is always a good idea. CSRs can use their technical expertise to resolve challenging customer issues and assist new team members in rapidly acclimating to your business’ support routines.
3. Multitasking prowess
A support representative must be able to multitask seamlessly between tasks like handling high-priority tickets, documenting solution articles, and creating notes for meetings and events so that their time and energy are distributed optimally. Customer support is one of the most chaotic departments within a company.
4. Paying close attention
Customer support problems can arise at any time, so they must be handled methodically and meticulously. Before recommending a remedy to customers, your support staff members must test it on themselves to make sure there have been no communication breakdowns.
5. The capacity to meet goals
Your customer service representatives, who serve as the public face of your business, should be able to uphold your SLAs and guarantee that all allocated tickets are resolved promptly. To escalate a ticket to the appropriate staff if it falls outside of their purview, they must follow established protocols.
6. A strategic strategy for assistance
After a problem is fixed, customer support representatives must continue to interact with the client. Additionally, they have the option to contact customers directly to solicit feedback from them and find out whether their experience with the product has been positive.
Customer service representative job description template
If you’ve decided to expand your customer service team, then a good job description helps you set the expectations for the role and attract the right people to your support team. You may wish to hire for a part-time, full-time, or shift-based role, and a job description is a right place to specify all the requirements and skills you’re looking for in a support rep.
Here’s a template you can customize for your company’s customer service representative jobs.
JOB TITLE:
Mention the exact role you’re hiring for. A customer support entry-level role could be ‘Customer service associate’, ‘Customer service representative’, or ‘Customer support representative’.
JOB SUMMARY:
Give a brief overview of what you’re looking for in the candidates for your specific job type and business. Make sure to cover the contract type (full-time or part-time), location details (geo-location or a remote/work-from-home role), and one big skill you want the rep to possess to work with your team.
Example:
We’re looking for a customer-focused, positive customer service associate who can take end-to-end ownership of assigned customer requests and deliver prompt resolution primarily through mail and chat channels. This is a full-time, on-site role based out of Singapore.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- List the primary duties of the customer service agent in this section.
- Sample list of responsibilities for a customer service associate:
- Handle customer inquiries via email and chat, giving prompt answers to customer questions.
- Provide knowledgeable help to customers and go the extra mile in providing the correct details to customer queries.
- Adhere to Service Level Agreement (SLA) deadlines in resolving customer complaints quickly and effectively.
- Collaborate with internal stakeholders such as the product and payments team for faster resolutions.
- Identify and escalate customer requests to managers when there’s a complex issue.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- Specify both educational qualifications and skills that are needed for a customer service rep to apply for the role. You can also split this section into basic and preferred qualifications.
- Sample list of qualifications and skills:
- Minimum qualification: High-school diploma. Graduates in any stream can also apply.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills (English).
- Good documentation skills. Proficiency in using Microsoft Excel and Word is an added advantage.
- Sound problem-solving skills to find the root cause of customer issues.