What is Customer Service? Salary, Skills and Career

By: Job Hai | October 14, 2022 7 min read
What is Customer Service? Salary, Skills and Career

Customer Service is every company’s backbone. In the fast-paced environment, organizations strive to provide end-to-end support to consumers to resolve their queries and keep them happy. The dynamic job profile falls in both non-voice to voice profiles. If you are looking forward to working as a customer service executive and want to know more about the domain, you have come to the right place. Know all about what is customer service, what is their role, qualifications, salary, and skills required.

Why is Customer Service Important?

In simpler terms, customer service is like a genie. Remember, 10-12 years ago, we always used to call customer service to ask for the recharge amount, remove or change the caller tune or for other services. Nowadays, we call about electricity status, call up food delivery customer services, and resolve our queries. The person picking up your call is a customer service executive. They listen to your concerns, register them on their system and provide solutions and take your valuable feedback to improve the services. Then that feedback is compiled, and the product team analyzes the data and then improves the services.

Why Customer Service Job?

If you apply for a customer service job, one key question that the interviewer will ask is why do you want to do a customer service job? The answer will help the interviewer to gauge how passionate you are about this job. The customer-facing job is the best when it comes to dealing with customers directly and helping create a positive image of the company.

The customer service executive ensures that the consumers are happy with the services, and in case there’s an issue, they provide an answer to it. The resolving part helps in retaining the consumers and stops them from finding an alternative and leaving the brand. Another key part is that you might enjoy conversing with people and helping them. The bottom line is that in a customer service job, the motto is to help consumers and be there for them in every situation. A company’s task is not just to sell a product but provide after-services as well.

Skills and Qualifications required for Customer Service Role

The key skill you require varies on the type of customer service executive you are. Some of the key skills are-

  1. Empathy to help people in distress
  2. Communication skills to deliver the message effectively and understand the concerns with a clear mind
  3. Patience to hearing the other person
  4. Technical knowledge to provide a solution
  5. Listening skills to actively identify the issue

To become a customer service executive or representative, here’s the qualification you need-

  1. A high school degree from a registered school or college
  2. A diploma or a bachelor’s degree
  3. Basic knowledge of computer
  4. Sound knowledge of the English language

Customer Service Types, Career Scope and Salary

Here are the most common types of customer service-

  1. Email
  2. Social media
  3. SMS
  4. Telephonic
  5. Self-service
  6. Live chat
  7. In-person

You already know what is customer service, but not about it types. These were the different types of customer service. When it comes to career scope, there is a high growth graph. You are assigned a target where you have a resolve a consumer’s query within a limited timeframe. If you meet the said target, you can quickly jump to become a senior customer service executive in less time. Here are different job roles in customer service domain along with the average salary in India-

Job roleApprox Annual Salary in INR
Customer Service Representative₹ 2,20,000 
Senior Customer Service Rep.₹ 3,30,000
Operations Manager ₹ 7,70,000
Operations Team Leader₹ 5,40,000
Assistant Manager Customer Service ₹ 5,58,000
Project Manager ₹ 1,310,800
Source: Ambitionbox

Customer Service Interview Questions

Maximum people want to join customer service because they think it’s an easy job with numerous benefits, but that’s not the case. Though there are multiple benefits, the task is quite complex. It’s not just about listening to others and giving them solutions. The questions are different, problems are different, and sometimes consumers are angry, so you might have to listen to their complaints and remain calm throughout.

Read: What is Back Office Job?

Sometimes, people want an instant solution which is also not quite possible, and you will have to upload the query on the feed, ask for the product number and phone number, talk to people in the tech team, and such. Overall, it takes effort to find the right solution. And so, the interviewer asks various questions to analyze whether you are the right fit for the job or not. Some of the common interview questions that the interviewer may ask you-

1. What interest you about customer service?

Though it’s a simple question, you will have to prepare an answer that showcases your passion and a keen interest towards the profession. You can state how you enjoy helping people and how customer service is the key to any company.

2. How do you handle difficult customers?

There will be times when the consumer won’t be happy with the services and might get angry at you. As a customer service executive, you will have to maintain your temperament. State how you would diffuse the situation by calmly apologizing to the customer about the inconvenience caused and how you are actively trying to find a solution to ensure a quick resolution.

These two are the main questions; apart from these, here are some questions that the interviewer may ask you-

  1. Give a real-life situation where you diffused heating situating between two people.
  2. What approach would you take if you were unable to find the answer to the customer’s question?
  3. Why did you leave your previous job? (For experienced candidates)
  4. State your weakness and strengths?
  5. Do you enjoy talking to people & helping them?
  6. What is good customer service for you?
  7. Why do you want to join this company?
  8. What if a customer screams and abuses you?

Prepare an answer to these questions in a creative way to show your communication skills as well.

Customer Service is a dynamic job profile and offers a lot of benefits. Now that you know what is customer service, you are ready to apply for the job. Head over to Jobhai.com and apply for customer service jobs that meet your requirements. Jobhai.com has all the current customer service opening listed, and more than 1 lakh recruiters are actively hiring for customer service representative roles for both fresher and experienced job positions.

FAQs

What does customer service mean?

Customer service means providing assistance in a courteous manner to the consumer whenever they are facing any issue with the company’s product or services.

What is the role of customer service?

The role of customer service is to connect with customers, listen to their problems and find the right answers to help them.

What type of work is customer service?

Customer service is a back office work. Although they are also front line workers and are the face of the company.

What is customer service in BPO?

What is customer service in BPO?
Maximum companies outsource their customer service work to the BPO. The BPOs take charge of the process completely and not just tend to consumers call but also focus on telemarketing, technical support, customer support, help in increasing sales and such.

Is customer service a good career?

The customer service job comes with numerous benefits and offers a great work-life balance. Depending on your performance, you can climb the ladder of success in less time.

Is customer service an IT job?

Yes, customer service does fall in the IT category as it provides services to IT companies of large, mid and small scale.