When we think of customer service skills, we tend to think of the skills required for any customer or client-facing position. However, they’re also necessary for any service-oriented functions that serve clients internal to an organization, like human resources, IT, and accounting. Therefore, in virtually any organization, there are numerous positions that require you to successfully highlight customer service skills on a resume to land the job.
In this post, we cover:
What is customer service?
Customer service is not only a skill but also a job or department within an organization. Customer service is generally considered a soft skill in and of itself and also includes several additional soft skills for success, as well as some hard skills, which will be discussed in more detail in the next sections.
A customer service position is one in which the individual interacts with customers or clients of an organization. They tend to exist within any type of business selling a product or service. Servers, baristas, call center representatives, receptionists, cashiers, and medical technicians are all required to serve customers in one way or another.
Some positions also serve clients internal to an organization. As previously mentioned, service-oriented departments, like human resources, IT, and accounting, typically have clients - often other departments - they support within the organization they work for. These types of positions require solid customer service skills similar to the customer service positions mentioned above.
Why are customer service skills important?
Customer service skills are those that support employees in providing optimal client-facing support in a friendly manner through communication and interpersonal interactions. Those with good customer skills skills are helpful in solving problems, providing information, and offering support for the myriad of questions consumers or clients might have.
There are several reasons why customer service skills are essential for success. For an organization that relies on the sale of products and services, customer service is the cornerstone of their success. Without it, profits are impacted. Internal to an organization, individuals with solid customer service skills support a positive work environment, employee morale, teamwork, effective collaboration, and more.
For positions like bartending and serving, the level of customer service skills each employee has directly impacts the amount of money they take home in the form of tips, as well as the company’s bottom line. These are just a few examples as to why customer service skills are in high demand.
The top 9 customer service skills
Here are nine in-demand customer service skills for your resume.
1. Communication
You don’t have any level of customer service if you don’t have communication. Verbal and written communication are essential to providing customer service - verbal communication through face-to-face, video, and phone conversations and written communication for messaging and email communications. It’s through communication that all other aspects of customer service – problem solving, conflict resolution, empathy, sharing knowledge, selling products and services, answering questions, and so on – can occur.
2. Active Listening
“I know you can hear me, but are you listening?” Hearing what someone is saying is different than truly listening to what someone is saying. Active listening allows you to read between the lines to get to the root of an issue, allows you to understand one’s challenges better, and provides you the opportunity to ask the right questions for further clarification. Those with superb active listening skills:
Pay attention to non-verbal cues when connecting in person
Make eye contact in situations that allow it
Listen without jumping to conclusions
Don’t interrupt the speaker
Ask questions
Remain focused on the speaker or conversation
Don’t jump ahead on what to say next
Avoid imposing opinions or judgments
Provide the right products and services for another’s needs
Paraphrase the information someone said back to them to show they’re listening and to confirm proper understanding
3. Empathy
Empathy is necessary for someone to offer good customer service. Why? Because it allows you to put yourself in the other person’s shoes without imposing your opinions or judgments on the situation. When you have empathy for another person’s situation, it supports you in listening to them better, appreciating their struggles, and coming up with viable solutions for support and problem-solving specific to their needs.
4. Conflict Resolution
Though we often try to avoid it, conflict is inevitable. It’s difficult to get through a week without some level of conflict occurring between clients and service providers. We all have different opinions, objectives, and ways of doing things that aren’t always going to align. It’s also difficult to make everyone happen all of the time when serving customers. These factors are why effective conflict resolution is necessary for customer service. You need to be able to face the conflict and deal with it quickly and efficiently to ensure something that is seemingly minor doesn’t blow up into something bigger than it needs to be. Proper conflict resolution also supports collaboration, productivity, and employee morale within an organization.
5. Problem-Solving
When clients and customers come to you with problems, they want to know they’ll receive a solution. Effective problem-solving allows you to see the challenges, develop possible solutions, work together to choose a solution, and then implement the solution. The faster you can do this for someone, the more likely they are to walk away satisfied.
6. Product Knowledge
As the only hard skill to make this Top 9 list, product knowledge is necessary for high marks in customer service. Without sufficient product knowledge, it makes it difficult to serve consumers and clients when they come to you with questions or problems.
Those who sell products or services to consumers need to know the ins and outs of the products and services they sell. Likewise, those who provide services to clients internal to an organization need to know what they’re talking about and be clear on the services they’re offering and engaged in.
7. Time Management
When you're answering several phones, receiving questions from multiple people, having to circle back with people, solving problems, dealing with conflict, and then some, you better have some solid time management skills under your belt.
Time management skills mean you have the ability to prioritize the many items that come across your desk appropriately. You also have the ability to ensure things don’t fall through the cracks and meet deadlines while also managing stress more effectively. In a nutshell, it’s difficult to offer good customer service without time management skills to back you up.
8. Adaptability
With the many changing demands and fast-paced work environments we tend to navigate in today’s world, being agile and adaptable is important in virtually any role. In terms of customer service, when working with customers and clients, their needs are ever-changing, as can also be the case with the products and services a business offers. As such, you need to be able to adapt and adjust your communications, actions, and priorities to align with the changing demands of the company you work for and the consumers and clients you support.
9. Persuasion
The art of persuasion is a gift for some and a must for those in customer service roles. Persuasion allows you to make that sale, upsell, solve problems faster, and encourage a peaceful resolution to conflicts, to name a few of its benefits.
Additional customer service skills on a resume
The above list is just a starting point for the types of customer service skills found on a resume. Here's a breakdown of additional hard and soft skills to consider.
Soft customer service skills on a resume
Soft skills are tangible skills that tend to be acquired over time. They’re not easily measured, though they are vital for job success and highly valued by employers. Here are some additional customer service soft skills commonly found on resumes:
Attention to detail
Collaboration
Creativity
Critical thinking
Decisiveness
Emotional intelligence
Negotiation skills
Organization
Patience
Leadership
Works well under stress
Computer skills
Hard customer service skills on a resume
Hard skills are technical skills acquired through training, education, and certifications. Unlike soft skills, they are easily measured. Below are some additional customer service hard skills for resumes:
Data entry
Data analysis
Language skills
Computer programs
Social media
Research
Email marketing
Calendar management
How to highlight customer service skills on a resume
Now that you know some of the top customer service skills found on a resume, how can you best highlight them? We offer the following tips to help guide you.
Make a list of your achievements
Think back to past work experiences and training. Make a list of all of your achievements, knowledge, and skills related to customer service. This will provide an excellent starting point as to what to include on your resume to showcase customer service.
Be specific and provide quantifiable data
For each position you list in your Work Experience section, you want to highlight and quantify your achievements that required customer service skills. Quantifying your results allows the hiring manager to better visualize your ability to succeed on the job. Below are two examples you might find in someone’s Work Experience section of their resume.
Customer service skills on a resume example #1
Analyzed monthly customer data reports to identify common customer complaints due to intake challenges, resulting in implementation of new customer intake process that led to a 10% increase in customer satisfaction
The above example highlights the customer service skills of data analysis, creativity, and problem-solving.
Customer service skills on a resume example #2
Coordinated scheduling for 211 practices in 10 states to re-engage 300 inactive patients, resulting in a 20% increase in appointments for 4Q 2023
The above example highlights customer service skills of scheduling, organization, time management, and communication.
You can also use your resume summary to note your most significant customer service skills and achievements. To learn about how to write an effective summary to entice resume readers to learn more, refer to “30 Resume Summary Examples that Work in 2024.”
Include certifications, training, and awards
If you have any training, certifications, or awards specific to customer service, include them on your resume. For training and certifications, you can either include these with your education section or in their own standalone sections.
For an award, if it’s related to your college years, you might include it with your education. Likewise, if it’s an award linked to one of your jobs, you can mention it in a bullet point for that job. Otherwise, you can create a standalone Awards section if you believe an award is important to include and it doesn’t fit into one of these categories.
Incorporate a skills or competencies list
Incorporating a Core Competencies section just below your resume summary can help to highlight sought-after customer service skills. Here, you can list any customer service skills you have that are necessary and relate to the job. For example:
Core Competencies
Customer Retention | Customer Relationship Management | Marketing Data Analysis Reporting | Active Listening | Event Planning | Scheduling | Consumer Data Management
Pull keywords from the job description
As you consider which customer service skills to include on your resume, refer to the job description and highlight the skills and experience you have. From there, include those keywords throughout your resume. Keywords help you get past applicant tracking systems and get noticed by hiring managers.
How to develop customer service skills
Improving your customer service can help you land your next job and advance in your career. It’s possible to hone in on and develop your customer skills in several ways. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Make a list of your current customer service skills that you feel you excel at and need to improve upon. Consider where you’ve received high marks, were rewarded, or knew you did a great job. What customer service skills were required? From there, make a list of areas for improvement. You can also prioritize the areas for improvement from what needs the most improvement to the least improvement. Additionally, take stock of what you believe is most important to focus on improving first, so you can begin to lay out a game plan for improvement.
Ask for feedback. One great way to develop your customer service skills is to ask others for feedback. You can ask customers directly about what they believe you do well and where you can improve. You can also ask managers and peers for their input. Finally, if your organization implements client and customer surveys, review them to gather input specific to your interactions.
Secure training to enhance or fill in gaps. Once you have your list of improvements and input from others mentioned in the first two bullet points in this section, you can begin to seek training and certifications to help you fill in gaps and enhance your current skill set. There are several free and low-cost options when you do an online search for “customer service training” and “customer service certifications.”
Practice empathy. Empathy can really help you elevate your customer service game. To practice empathy, allow yourself to become curious and get to know people, consider similarities and differences between you and others and appreciate those differences, and put yourself in another’s shoes. An empathetic person asks questions like, “I wonder what that experience is like for them?” or “I wonder what it’s like to be them at this moment?” In other words, instead of thinking about how the experience would be for you, focus on the other person’s experience and perspective.
Practice active listening. Active listening allows you to better engage, communicate, problem-solve, and much more. To practice active listening, build self-awareness to understand how well you currently listen and where you can improve. Pay attention to when you get distracted during conversations, so you can refocus your attention on the conversation. When you catch yourself preparing a reply before the other person has stopped speaking, again, focus your attention on the speaker and wait to form a rebuttal or response until after they're finished. In addition, practice paraphrasing what you think someone else said back to them to ensure you’re on the same page about the communication.
Use tools to remain calm under pressure. Oftentimes, when we get stressed, our customer service skills take a hit. Work to find activities that help you remain calm under pressure, like pausing and taking a moment to calm down or slowing your breathing down to calm your system. It’s also vital that you implement a good self-care routine to support yourself in minimizing stress, in general, which can also have a positive impact on your skills at work.
Customer service skills on your resume add value
Now you know which customer service skills on a resume are in high demand, as well as how to include them. With the above guidance, you’ll be able to craft a resume filled with customer service skills to help you get noticed by prospective employers and their hiring teams. You also have some great tips to help you hone your customer service skills to excel at your current and future jobs and advance your career!
Does your resume effectively represent your customer service skills to land interviews? Why not submit it for a free resume review for expert input to find out?
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Written by
Ronda Suder, Professional Writer
With a drive to foster safety and expand possibilities through writing, performing, and working with others, Ronda brings 25 years of combined experience in HR, recruiting, career advice, communications, mental and behavioral health, and storytelling to her work. She’s a certified career coach and holds a Master’s in Human Resources, a Master’s in Film and Media Production, and a Master’s in Counseling and Development. As a writer, she’s covered topics ranging from finance and rock mining to leadership and internet technology, with a passion for career advice and mental-health-related topics. When she’s not at her computer, Ronda enjoys connecting with others, personal growth and development, spending time with her beloved pooch, and entertainment through movies, television, acting, and other artistic endeavors. You can connect with Ronda on LinkedIn and through her website.
