If you enjoy working with people, educating them on their options, and helping them problem-solve, the role of a customer service representative is a promising role to pursue.
In This Article
How CSR Jobs Benefit For-Profit Businesses
What Business Customer Success Representatives Do
Unique Aspects of Nonprofit Customer Service
Skills and Qualifications for Customer Service
Career Paths and Success to Pursue
If you enjoy working with people, educating them on their options, and helping them problem-solve, the role of a customer service representative is a promising role to pursue. As a customer service representative, you’ll work with people directly, answering their questions, handling their needs and ensuring their concerns are addressed. And since customer service is vital to just about any company, this career can take you into any industry or field you’re intrigued to pursue, whether you desire an in-person, remote, or hybrid work arrangement.
Read on to learn more about the valuable role of the customer service representative in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and how you can excel in this career.
<h2 id="csr">How CSR Jobs Benefit For-Profit Businesses</h2>
Customer satisfaction is an essential key to helping for-profit businesses maintain their reputation, retain existing clients, and grow their customer base. Industries with large numbers of CSR positions include retail and shopping, insurance, software, and more. Even spaces such as professional development and education can benefit from having customer satisfaction people on board.
In fact, customer service can make a company truly stand out and be memorable in a world of constant marketing messages. Companies such as Apple, Zappos, Chick-fil-A, Chewy, and others have become known at different times for their willingness to go above and beyond to satisfy customers. This creates a sense of loyalty among consumers which helps companies withstand challenges and continue to grow.
The role of the customer success team is therefore essential, as it touches clients personally. You will have opportunities to help your organization retain customers and encourage their ongoing satisfaction, shape the reputation of its brand, encourage revenue growth through upselling and cross-selling relevant products and services, resolve problems, gain valuable feedback, and more.
<h2 id="role">What Business Customer Success Representatives Do</h2>
For those who love connecting with people and solving problems, customer service offers a promising and vibrant career, with many positions to choose from. There is so much variety in the roles in the customer service arm of a company, allowing you to focus on an area that appeals to you. Companies define these roles in a variety of ways, so it’s good to ask specifics and pay attention to job descriptions, but in general, here’s an overview of what you can look for:
Customer Service
This area is responsible for reaching out directly to customers to offer promotions, company and product news, and other proactive benefits that clients of a company should know about. Roles in this area may be in-person or remote, and can include job titles such as customer service representative, customer service specialist, customer service engineer, customer service supervisor, and customer service manager.
Customer Support
Similarly to customer service, customer support works directly with people, but in this case the customer is the one to initiative the conversation—looking for answers to questions, billing issues, product or service challenges, and other needs. Customer support personnel solve problems as they chat with people on the phone, by email, on social media, and in online chats. Roles include customer support representative, customer support specialist, bilingual or multilingual customer support specialist, customer support engineer, and customer support manager.
Customer Success
Customer success is responsible for working directly with people to help them with the startup of new products and services, as well as help craft effective use of the products and services. They function like consultants, guiding customers to success. Roles may be listed as customer success associate, customer success manager, implementation specialist, and customer success team lead.
Customer Experience
Customer experience typically focuses on higher-level executives create and champion product, service, and company-wide initiatives that promote a positive customer experience and corporate responsibility. They offer input and encourage customer-centric programs while also keeping revenue and costs in mind. Roles typically include the customer experience manager and the director of customer experience.
<h2 id="nonprofit">Unique Aspects of Nonprofit Customer Service</h2>
What makes the role of customer service in a nonprofit different from the for-profit sector? For starters, the stakeholders you’ll work with are different. Instead of C-suite executives focused on profits, product and service departments, and paying consumers, you will work with executives focused on fundraising. You will also interact with potential and existing donors, building their trust, gathering feedback, and solving concerns in order to help the nonprofit be successful in meeting fundraising goals.
Of course, the opportunity to make an impact by working as a customer service representative at a nonprofit is strong. You’ll reach out to potential donors, explain the value of the mission your charity embraces, share success stories of lives changed through the nonprofits outreaches, and handle questions and donor needs to ensure their satisfaction and their continued connection to the work of the organization. Through their donations and partnerships, you’ll be seeing a direct impact through your nonprofit’s programs, helping those in need and making the world a better place.
Customer service members in nonprofits may be involved in fundraising, grant management, or building strategic partnerships with for-profit companies in order to increase their social impact. You may work closely with departments such as communications, strategy, programming, and more—in order to stay up to date on the latest initiatives that you will inform donors about. And you may also handle practical donor needs, such as taking donations, handling questions about how funds are overseen, and explaining the value of ongoing giving.
<h2 id="skills">Skills and Qualifications for Customer Service</h2>
To do well in a customer success role, you’ll need a variety of skills and aptitudes, such as:
Empathy
You will naturally interact with numerous different people each day, all with their own needs and concerns. Being able to relate as you listen to customer inquiries will help you connect with them as you look for answers to their needs.
Resilience
Customers often reach out to customer service when they are feeling confused or frustrated, and some may express their emotions unkindly. It helps to be able to retain your balance in such situations, and not take these moments too personally.
Effective Communication
In order to address customer complaints and concerns, you will need to glean their needs and goals, and be able to convey potential solutions. Active listening, skills in understanding people, good question techniques, and clear explanations are all a part of success in this role.
Responsive Problem-Solving
As part of your CSR role, you will help customers find solutions when issues arise. You’ll be addressing concerns such as product defects, service interruptions, and billing problems. Being able to do so while ensuring customers feel heard and valued is a must.
<h2 id="success">Career Paths and Success to Pursue</h2>
While customer service is often thought of, at first glance, as an entry-level role, the fact is that it can lead to a burgeoning long-term career with opportunities for promotion and impact. In the world of technology, a person might start as a help desk representative, but can move from there into tech customer service management or into lateral departments such as frontend and backend development and software engineering. This type of growth is available in other industries too, and you can move into mid-level and high-level positions such as team lead, customer service manager, director of client experience, and more.
To set yourself up for a long-term career with upward growth, look for opportunities to learn new skills in your chosen field—anything from taking tech courses if you want to pursue development and engineering, to learning to write grants in the nonprofit field. In addition, consider certifications related specifically to excellence in customer service, including HDI-CSR, CCSP, CCSM, and CCXP certification. Finally, courses that help you develop emotional intelligence, communication skills, and conflict resolution can all be beneficial.
If you’re interested in moving from a different career into customer service, research various industries and organizations to see where your existing skills relate to the customer service you’ll need to deliver. Networking can also be a plus, as you can learn about various roles in customer service, customer support, customer experience, and customer success, and perhaps get an introduction to someone who can help you move into this much-needed and influential career path.
Summing It Up
In customer service, you will have the chance to help people, companies, and nonprofits succeed. You’ll directly connect with consumers, donors, and other stakeholders to help promote customer loyalty, brand reputation, and success. The future of this career path is strong, as there is always a need to assist people as they connect with businesses and nonprofits.
Learn more about the abundant and varied opportunities to make an impact by exploring CSR jobs through our Talent Network. Sign up and get custom job alerts so you can stay updated on the latest in-person and remote customer service-related positions.
