17+ Best Customer Service Resume Skills Examples

Best Customer Service Skills for Resume - Mistakes & Tips

Customer service skills are vital, not only for customer service roles but also for many job roles because almost all jobs work on customer satisfaction ultimately.

Let us go deeper in understanding through this article what kind of customer service skills can help enhance your resume and help you land your dream job.

Top 10 Customer Service Skills to Include on Your Resume

1. Communication Skills

Through effective interaction between the employee and the customer, the employee can understand and work on the customer’s concerns.

It promotes trust and builds healthy relationships between the customer and the company.

Examples of how to highlight communication skills on your resume are:

A. Active Listening

Listening to the customers with total focus and real intention of helping them allows you

to understand what the exact problem is and help you provide them with proper

solutions.

Below is an example of how you can demonstrate active listening:

B. Verbal Communication

Through verbal communication, an employee speaks out to provide any information, or solutions or to ask any questions regarding customer issues.

Below is an example of how you can demonstrate verbal communication:

C. Written Communication

It is through this that we can keep track of the interactions between the employees and the customers. It is used for documenting major issues or giving detailed information on the products and allows customers to get back to the information whenever they require. 

D. Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication includes body language, greeting customers, using facial expressions while listening to customer issues, and making hand gestures whenever required. These show that you respect the customer and his or her inquiries or concerns. 

2. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence

Well, who doesn’t want to be understood? Being empathetic is about understanding and sharing the feelings of the other person. It is a highly kind act that you can show to your customers. Be there for them listen to them and make them feel comfortable and heard. 

Below are examples of how you can list empathy as a skill:

A. Understanding customer needs

To solve a problem, you need to understand it first. So understanding the customer needs is important for providing the services.

B. Managing emotions

Managing emotions is crucial for both the customer and the employee. Only then can the employee deal with the problem professionally and the customer can control his flow of emotions and convey the issue.

C. Building rapport and relationships

Don't you think rapport is crucial for the accomplishment of any teamwork? It is an obvious yes. For proper conveying of information, the customer and the employee should maintain a good rapport and healthy relationship.

You can list this as a skill as below:

3. Problem Solving

Problem-solving abilities of the employee are highly appreciated and looked for because only if possess these abilities, the employee can identify the root cause of the problem and provide efficient solutions.

A. Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is important to analyze the problem deeply and frame various solutions for the problem.

Below is an example of showing your critical thinking abilities on your resume:

B. Decision-Making

Through quick and accurate decisions, the employee can build trust in the company and get the services done more efficiently.

Below is an example of showing your decision-making skills on your resume: 

C. Creativity in Finding Solutions

Creativity is required in all domains and also in customer service. Creativity pushes the employee to think outside the box and craft unique and working solutions for customer concerns.

Below is an example of showing your creativity on your resume:

4. Time Management

What is successful without the cooperation of time? If time has to cooperate, you have to cooperate with it, which means you should possess time management skills for the timely completion of any work.

For example,

5. Adaptability and Flexibility

Adaptability and flexibility are also important when it comes to any role, including customer service. You have to adjust to the constantly changing environments in order to remain consistent in your delivery of good services.

Here are given examples of how you can display these in your resume:

6. Patience

Do you value anger? Absolutely not. Lack of patience leads to anger and other unwanted negative emotions which when shown out can damage the customer’s feelings.

Therefore, having patience and being patient in critical situations is very crucial to ensuring an amicable flow of communication between the employee and the customer. Also, employees are appreciated and praised for their patience at the workplace.

So to describe patience in work experience resume, use the following phrases:

7. Product Knowledge

How and what services can you provide if you are not aware of your own company’s product? Yes, Product knowledge is mandatory for giving accurate product details to the customers.

Strong product knowledge shows that the company is confident about the product and it makes the customers more interactive with the employees and the company.

8. Technical Skills

Proficiency in technology and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software enables the storing of customer interaction and transaction data. You can retrieve the data whenever required.

This technology helps in follow-ups, building customer loyalty, and improving customer experiences.

9. Teamwork and Collaboration

When people from different teams come together to work on an issue, they can solve it much quicker and with high efficiency, which is why teamwork and collaboration skills are needed in customer service.

For detailed conveying of the current problems, designing of various solutions for a problem, and sharing the work to resolve the issue on time, are the main plus of teamwork and collaboration in customer service.

Examples of highlighting these skills in your resume are:

10. Attention to Detail

Attention to detail is vital because every tiny detail of what the customer is talking about will help you make more effective decisions and deliver accurate and working solutions. 

It will improve the reputation of the company by grabbing even the tiniest of details of customer concerns. This shows your dedication and motive to clear the issues of the customers. 

You can show this skill on your resume as follows:

Entry-level Customer Service Resume Skills

Being an entry-level customer service representative, you will assist the customers regarding any product information or address their concerns and provide solutions.

Mid-level Customer Service Representative Skills

As a mid-level customer service representative, you will train the entry-level candidates and help the customers in solving complex issues. Also, you will have a deeper understanding of the product and the ways of creating a positive environment for customers.

Resume Skills for Customer Service Manager

A Customer Service Manager supervises the working of customer service representatives in the organization. He or she ensures smooth interaction with customers and customer satisfaction.

Executive-Level Customer Experience Leader Resume Skills

An Executive-Level Customer Experience Leader ensures that the customer is having a positive and calm experience with the company and he or she oversees all the work done by the customer service team.

This role generally includes Chief Customer Officer (CCO) and Vice President of Customer Experience.

Retail Customer Service Skills

Retail Customer Service includes improving the shopping experience for the customers. This role involves direct interaction with the customers asking for their needs and helping them with the shopping details.

Call Center and Remote Customer Service Skills

A Call Center Customer Service role includes answering incoming calls clarifying doubts and assisting the customers with their concerns.

A Remote Customer Service role involves answering the inquiries of the customers through various platforms like phone, email, and messages from home itself.

Healthcare Customer Service Skills

In healthcare customer service, support to patients, assisting the patient families in the medical information, scheduling of appointments, managing bills, and addressing patient inquiries are performed.

Financial Services Customer Service Skills

This role involves assisting customers with their bank transactions, money investments, and financial procedures. They help the customers to manage accounts in finances properly.

Hospitality and Tourism Customer Service Skills

This role involves ensuring a happy and peaceful experience for travelers or for people on trips. These service professionals are responsible for hotel bookings, tickets, and travel plans.

Technology and SaaS Customer Service Resume Skills

This service provides assistance with technical issues and software issues for Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms. They help customers troubleshoot SaaS products.

How to Effectively Highlight Customer Service Skills on a Resume

Resume Summary or Objective

Incorporate customer service skills into the resume summary. For this, you have to use relevant keywords that are used in the job description and highlight the key skills that the employers are seeking and mentioned in the description. 

Skills Section

Dedicate a separate section for skills in the resume and skills to put on a customer service resume are to be included under this section and categorize them accordingly. 

Work Experience Section

Following the skills section is the work experience section where you have to explain the contributions you have made and the achievements you have made by quantifying them.

You can use quantifying verbs and quantifications to demonstrate the impact in the customer service representative resume.

How to Improve and Develop Your Customer Service Skills

• Socialize more: Socializing more will grow your network and increase your interaction skills, which is very important in customer service.
• Slowly adapt active listening: In your daily conversations, try to listen to the speaker with total concentration.
• Stay calm under pressure: If you are too stressed over anything, then do not let that stress come out. Just stay calm and peaceful and try to divert yourself from the situation.
• Utilize your technical proficiency to the maximum: Use the CRM software to ease your services and reduce the burden on yourself.
• Continuously learn about the product: Keep learning and be updated with the product and its development phases to ensure the delivery of accurate details to the customer.
• Stay positive: Remain and maintain a positive atmosphere in any critical situation. This will balance your confidence.

Tips for Adding Strong Customer Service Resume Skills

• Use strong action verbs and quantify your achievements wherever needed. For example, you can use verbs like, ‘resolved’, ‘improved’, etc. to impact the action. Also, use quantifying verbs like ‘reduced’, ‘improved’, ‘increased’, etc.
• Mention the positive customer feedback that you received: Including positive customer feedback can help the employer understand your performance. 
• Showcase Any Customer Service Awards or Recognition: Like ‘Employee of the year’ or ‘Best Customer Service Professional of the year’ or ‘Customer Service Excellence Award.’
• Highlight the rating you received: Sometimes the employee receives a high rating of above 4.5 out of 5. You can mention this in the resume if received. 
• Mention Any Specialized Training or Certifications: Include any online coursework or certification, or also workshops that you attended relating to customer service.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Customer Service Resume Skills

• Writing too many skills:Overloading the skills section with too many skills will raise doubts about your competency.
• Using general words:Including general terms that most people use does not differentiate your resume from others.
• Forgetting keywords: Mentioning the keywords that are present in the job description as many times as possible is recommended,
• Not organizing the skills:Not categorizing and organizing the skills in bullet points will make your resume look clumsy.
• Usage of repeating skills:Highlighting the same skills over and over creates redundancy which is not a positive factor.

Emerging Trends in Customer Service Skills

Integration of AI technologies

With the rise of AI, knowledge of techniques of its usage is also in demand. You should learn how to use AI for the best outputs in customer service.

Multichannel Support

Supporting and assisting customers through various platforms like phone, email, or social media is required because one customer may prefer email while the other may prefer social media. 

Data-Driven Decision Making

Using data analysis to foresee the circumstances and also to understand the present scenarios effectively is also a skill that is emerging.

Cultural Competence

Since businesses nowadays are becoming international, customer service professionals must be culturally competent to satisfy all the customers coming from various backgrounds. 

Continuous Learning

Since the customer service role is constantly improving and requires new skills that are tailored to different customers, updating with new tools and technologies is important.

Conclusion

• Customer service role skills include empathy, communication, problem-solving, and other similar skills.
• Understand the job description carefully and craft your skill section such that it aligns with the job description.
• Avoid writing in general terms and overloading the skills section with too many and repeated skills.
• Give mental support and understand customer's emotions, in case they turn emotional.