Customer Service Representative Skills for a Resume
Companies hire customer service representatives who solve problems quickly and leave customers happy. Show the channels you handle, your volume and the measures you hit.
Updated
12 skills at a glance
Hard skills
What the work takes, how a hiring manager judges each skill, and a bullet point that shows it.
Phone, chat and email support
Name the channels you cover and your contacts a day, and show that quality holds across all of them.
Example bullet pointHandled up to four chats at once alongside email during busy seasons.
Help desk and CRM software (Zendesk, Salesforce, Freshdesk)
Name the system and how you used it well.
Example bullet pointUsed Zendesk macros and tags to cut repeat typing and keep cases easy to find.
Order management
Show the order problems you solved.
Example bullet pointTraced lost shipments with carriers and sent replacement orders the same day.
Billing and payments
Show billing problems fixed accurately.
Example bullet pointCorrected billing errors and issued refunds within my approval limit without needing a supervisor.
Data entry and typing
Give your typing speed if it is strong, and show that quick notes and replies stay accurate.
Example bullet pointTyped at 65 words per minute, keeping chat replies quick and accurate.
Knowledge base writing
Show articles that reduced contacts.
Example bullet pointWrote ten help articles on returns and delivery, cutting related contacts by a fifth.
Product knowledge
Show how knowing the product helped customers.
Example bullet pointBecame the team's go-to person for the subscription product and answered colleagues' questions about it.
Soft skills
Shown through what you did, never claimed as adjectives.
Patience
Show it with difficult or confused customers.
Example bullet pointWalked an older customer through setting up her account over two calls until it worked.
Empathy
Show how you understood and helped a frustrated customer.
Example bullet pointTurned an angry customer whose order arrived broken into a repeat buyer with a quick replacement.
Clear communication
Show clear answers that solved problems the first time.
Example bullet pointWrote short, clear replies that reduced follow-up emails on my cases.
Problem solving
Describe a tricky case you resolved, or a pattern in problems you spotted and reported.
Example bullet pointSpotted a pattern in login tickets and reported it to the product team, which fixed the cause.
Staying calm under pressure
Show that your quality held at peak times, such as holidays or outages, when contacts piled up.
Example bullet pointKept quality scores high through a holiday rush when contacts doubled.
Licenses and certifications
Give them a section of their own, with who issued each one and the year or expiry date.
- Customer Service Excellence certificate
- HDI Customer Service Representative (HDI-CSR)
Keywords from customer service representative job postings
Use the ones that are true for you, in your bullet points as well as your skills list.
- customers
- calls
- satisfaction
- first contact
- complaints
- returns
- escalated
- chats
- payment
Each posting has its own words. Our guide to tailoring your resume to a job description shows how to find them and where to put them.
Where to put your skills
- In a skills section: a short list of the hard skills the posting names, in its words.
- In your bullet points: every skill that matters should show up in something you did, with a result. That is where a hiring manager believes it.
- In your summary: two or three of the skills the job asks for most.
More on choosing them in how to choose and prove the skills on your resume.
Questions
What skills should a customer service representative put on a resume?
Phone, chat and email support, help desk software, orders, billing, typing, knowledge base writing and product knowledge, plus patience, empathy and problem solving.
Which metrics should I include?
Contacts a day, satisfaction score, first-contact resolution and quality scores.
Should I mention languages?
Yes. A second language is a strong advantage in customer service; put it in your skills and your summary.
Put them to work
Start from a customer service resume that already uses these skills, for an invented person, and make it yours in the builder.