7 Customer Service Resume Examples + Best Practices
Working in customer service is both challenging and rewarding. It helps you develop soft and hard skills, all while giving you a great opportunity to learn the ropes of a business and get exposure to many different departments and disciplines within the company.
Landing one of these jobs requires a specific set of skills (here's looking at you, Mr. Neeson), and effectively communicating to hiring teams that you possess these skills requires a well-thought-out resume.
In this article, we share seven different customer service resume examples that cover a variety of roles.
7 customer service resume examples
1. Entry-level customer service representative
Often, getting your first customer service job is the most challenging. Without previous experience, what you’re really trying to show through your resume is that you’re reliable and teachable. Think about past educational or volunteer experiences, and highlight the ones that show this. An example might be talking about a group project or something similar.
Since you won’t need to use as much space on the work history section, you can expand more on the skills and education sections. For those with more work experience, you’ll probably want to keep these sections a little lighter. The resume as a whole should never exceed one page, especially for more entry level positions.
Also, don’t try to pad your resume. If you have limited experience it can be tempting, but it’ll only hurt you in the long run. Be honest, be concise, and be upfront. Hiring teams will appreciate it, and it will ensure you end up finding the right fit.
2. Lead customer service representative
Once you have a good amount of experience in your chosen customer service role, you should focus your resume more on your performance and less on your potential. For example, you could talk about your average conversation volume. You could also highlight if you had a specialization like billing or compliance.
You should also list any tools you have experience using or have expertise with. It’s also good to highlight any projects or programs you led or had a hand in leading. For example, if your team started a voice of the customer program and you were responsible for collecting customer feedback, list it. Showing increases in responsibility can communicate to hiring teams that you’re ready for more.
3. Customer success manager
Customer success managers are often responsible for a smaller subset of large customer accounts and work in much more of an advisory role than customer service agents. They may even be responsible for things like expansion revenue or churn reduction.
Because of this it’s good to highlight any high-touch relationships you had with customers or times you served as an advisor. You could also talk about any cross-departmental projects you’ve worked on, as CSMs regularly work with teams outside of customer service.
If you’ve had any sales experience, it’s good to highlight that as CSMs are often something of a hybrid of service and sales. At the very least, letting hiring teams know you’re comfortable with selling and making product recommendations is key as it tends to be a part of these roles.
4. Community manager
Companies are increasingly investing in creating online communities that foster higher levels of engagement and open the possibility for peer-to-peer information sharing. People in these roles are often responsible for engaging with community members and moderating conversations and threads to make sure everything aligns with community guidelines.
If you have previous community moderation experience, it’s great to highlight that. You could also talk about any projects you worked on where you had to seek out customers to get feedback or engage them in some way. You could even talk about online communities you’re active in as a member if you don’t have direct professional experience.
For people with direct experience, it’s good to note what types of communities you managed previously as well as the tools you’re experienced with for community management. Including success metrics like community growth during your tenure can help your resume stand out.
5. Technical customer service representative
Technical customer service hopefuls should highlight different tools they know how to use as well as any technical skills they possess. For example, you may have experience with a certain coding language or with using APIs.
Though technical acumen is important, it still requires you to have all the other necessary customer service skills like communication and empathy. You could consider sharing your average CSAT score or something similar. You should also highlight tools you’re experienced with. It shows technical aptitude, and if the role you’re applying to uses the same tools, it means you’ll be able to ramp up faster, which could be attractive to hiring teams.
6. Customer service manager
When applying for manager roles, it’s important to show leadership experience. Maybe you led a team, project, or initiative — all are good to highlight. You could also highlight any time you drove a process change or something similar as it also shows leadership and initiative.
List any direct experience you have managing others. It could be in both formal or informal capacities. Since people management is often part of a customer service manager role, it’s important you show you’re capable of doing it. Things like conflict resolution, scheduling, and coaching are often part of customer service manager jobs, so any experience you have in those areas is great to highlight.
At the end of the day, a customer service manager’s success is measured by the success of their team. Being able to effectively portray that you’re capable of helping others get better (not just yourself) can help put you at the top of the list for management roles.
7. Director of customer service
At the director level, it’s important to show you’ve had experience leading multiple teams and have done so effectively. Essentially you need to show you can manage managers, hire effectively, set an overall vision for the department, and execute on that vision.
Showing times that you’ve worked on bigger-picture projects is important to do since director level positions are often responsible for moving the needle for the business as a whole. Showing you understand how to do things like create and manage a budget as well as develop programs that can reduce costs or improve efficiency are important.
These resumes should really be focused on experience and results. What you’re trying to convey is that you’re an expert in your line of work, and showing past results is one of the best ways to do that. Also, if you’ve completed any advanced education, it can be good to list that as well.
Landing the gig
Landing a job comes down to much more than having a top-notch resume, but it is an important part of the process. It’s often what forms a hiring team’s first impression, so it’s worth taking the time to get it right.
If you’re looking for a little more help in the application process, check out our article on what to include in your customer service cover letter.
Jesse Short
The Supportive Weekly: A newsletter for people who want to deliver exceptional customer service.