7 Steps to Revamp Your Exceptional Customer Service Resume

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Stand out to hiring managers and find a great job opportunity by following 7 steps to revamp your exceptional customer service resume.

You already know how to keep customers happy, but how do you communicate that in a resume? You may have a work history full of positive customer experiences, but when it comes to finding a new job, your resume needs to tell that story to hiring managers and recruiters.

Following 7 steps to revamp your exceptional customer service resume will help you ensure your excellent customer service skills are clearly communicated to potential employers. 

What is an exceptional customer service resume?

An exceptional customer service resume isn’t just a work history document, it shows potential employers that you have the skills needed to join their customer service team and excel right away. Excellent customer service is about more than knowing how to use a customer relationship management (CRM) platform or TCPA tools (though it certainly helps). 

Instead, your customer service resume should cover a range of hard and soft skills and highlight your experience and measurable achievements directly relating to the job you’re applying to. 

Image Sourced from deloitte.com

Ultimately, top-quality service is the most important skill that managers are looking for, but your resume might cover a range of skills from boosting customer loyalty to overall communication ability. What’s important when writing a quality customer service resume is ensuring your experience and skills are clear and tailored to the job you want. This will boost your chances of being selected for an job interview and getting hired for the role you want.

How to revamp your exceptional customer service resume in 7 steps

1. Pin down your career goals

If you’re revamping your customer service resume, it’s important you know why you’re doing it and what you hope to gain from the process. 

Free to use image sourced from Unsplash

This will, of course, require some self-reflection. What are your strengths, and what do you need more experience in? This will help you be realistic when setting goals. 

Next, it’s time to figure out your long-term goals. Where do you want to be in five years? Ten? Do you want to move up in your current role to become a team leader or a manager? Or do you want to transition into a different customer service niche, such as AI customer service? 

2. Review your current resume

There’s no need to start from a blank slate. You already have a resume, so reviewing it is a good place to start. Figure out what’s working and what isn’t. 

When reviewing your resume, go through the following parts:

• Contact information: Are your personal details and contact information correct and up to date?
• Work history: What roles have you had, and what experience do you list under each role? 
• Skills: What skills are currently on your resume? Are there any missing?
• Education and training: Does your current resume include your education and any training programs you’ve undergone? How do they fit into your other skills and experience?
• Achievements: Does your resume cover any achievements you’ve had at work or awards you’ve received?
• Presentation: Have you chosen the most effective resume formatting possible? Is it easy to read? Could a recruiter quickly scan it for necessary information? 

3. Identify your key customer service skills

Now put your old resume aside and grab a pen and paper. Make a list of as many exceptional customer service skills as possible. Include ones you have and ones you might need for more senior roles.

Some customer service skills you might include are:

• Active listening
• Product knowledge (specific to your niche)
• CRM experience
• Empathy
• Good calendar management
• Adaptability
• Teamwork
• Leadership.

Next, take a highlighter and highlight the skills you have. Now you can make two separate lists of current skills and future skills. This will help you figure out what customer service roles you could apply for and what experience you might need to level up. 

Image sourced from mckinsey.com

Technical skills are more important than ever, with more and more businesses making use of software to resolve complaints. If you have experience using any sort of software or tools, be sure to note it down. 

4. Find your measurable achievements and contributions

Now it’s time to dig deeper into your employment history. You need to provide evidence of your achievements, ideally in quantifiable terms. Look out for the following:

• Exceeding expectations: When have you gone above and beyond? This might include consistently receiving positive feedback from customers. Ideally, have statistics from your customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores so you can quantify how often you exceed expectations.
• Problem-solving: Excellent customer service involves solving complex problems and challenges. To measure this, your resume might cover how your solutions saved X amount of time or resulted in a decrease in customer complaints. 
• Number of customers served: Speed and efficiency are key in a customer service role. This might come down to how many calls you can take per hour or even the extra work you’ve done to handle more queries. For example, you may have successfully implemented an AI appointment setting tool that allowed you to deal with more customers while spending less time scheduling. 
• Quality of service: Your net promoter scores (NPS) and CSAT scores are both simple yet measurable ways to showcase the quality of your customer service and your ability to retain loyal customers. Beyond this, you might also note down your first call resolution rates or low error rates. 

5. Tailor to your target job

You shouldn’t have one resume that you send, unchanged, as a part of every single job application. Instead, go into revamping your resume with a very specific job in mind. The customer experience management market is on the rise, so there will be jobs out there for customer service representatives.

Image sourced from grandviewresearch.com

Start by looking at the job advert and description. Which of your skills are needed here? What experience should you highlight? Go through your lists of skills and experience and highlight everything you think is most relevant to the job you’re applying to. 

Next, highlight the experience and skills listed in the job description. Are there skills mentioned here that you have but didn’t think to include on your resume? Is there a particular experience that, with a little rewording, you can make your profile perfectly align with the vacancy?

HR teams have a set of, let’s say, ‘buzzwords’ in their job descriptions. A resume that makes similar use of the terms and language of the job description will quickly appear like a closer fit than one that doesn’t. 

6. Perfect your formatting

You have all the necessary info to hand. You have your work experience and your key skills. Plus, you have measurable achievements ready to slot in. Now it’s time to build and format your resume. 

A typical customer service resume should have the following:

• Contact details: include your full name, phone number, email address, and location.
• Professional summary: A brief statement summarizing your experience and skills, as well as the job you’re looking for. Be sure to tailor this headline section to match the job description (more on that later). You should emphasize how your background aligns with this specific role.
• Skills: List relevant exceptional customer service skills, both hard and soft. You should include technical skills (such as proficiency in CRM software or trigger email marketing) and interpersonal skills, like active listening and teamwork. Don’t forget to highlight skills relevant to the job you’re applying to.
• Work experience: Here, you should start with your current or most recent position and work backward. Include the job title and company name as well as the location and dates of employment. Next, provide a brief description of your responsibilities and accomplishments for each role. You should use bullet points to highlight key achievements and quantify results whenever possible. For example: Resolved 90% of customer issues on the first call. Once again, focus on relevant experiences for the job you’re applying to.
• Education: List your highest level of education, including the degree earned and institution name. Don’t forget to add your graduation date, whether you’re a new graduate or not. Below this, include any certifications or training programs relevant to customer service. If you have done extensive training, consider making this a separate section: Training, certificates, and awards. All of this should be formatted in a way that’s neat and easily scanned by the human eye. Make your headings clear and make use of bullet points so that recruiters or HR teams can quickly get a sense of your experience and skills.

7. Add a personal touch

Whether sifting through physical resumes or utilizing cloud recruitment software, your target employer could have lots of near-identical resumes. Luckily, there are ways to stand out from the crowd. 

Free to use image sourced from Unsplash

While simply listing your hobbies doesn’t tell a hiring manager how well you can handle customer queries, highlighting how your personality and interests feed into your relationships with customers and employees certainly could. 

Do you share passions or personal experiences with customers to go the extra mile? Do you add a spark or warmth to your team? Don’t be afraid of slipping personality into your resume. 

Conclusion: Translate happy customers into a revamped resume

Ultimately, your exceptional service and ability to meet customer expectations are what make you a hireable customer support agent. Follow the 7 steps to revamp your exceptional customer service resume and tell a story about what you’ve learned throughout your work history and what you can bring to a new role.

By highlighting your best skills and tailoring your resume to fit your target job, you can ensure your superior customer service shines through.