Key Customer Service Skills to Feature on Your Resume

Customer service roles require specific job skills—or a mix of workplace skills (sometimes called “soft skills”) and technical skills. Whereas technical skills pertain to role-specific knowledge, like how to use a certain software program, workplace skills pertain to how you approach your work.

When you’re writing a resume to apply for jobs in customer service, like customer service representative, it can help to feature certain skills associated with this type of work. In this article, we’ll go over the major customer service skills you can integrate into your resume and where you can do that. 

Learn more: Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: What’s the Difference?

10 important customer service skills for your resume

It’s important to tailor your resume for each role you apply to. That’s because many companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to automatically parse submissions and narrow down candidates. Getting past an ATS often means reviewing job descriptions, identifying the keywords used to describe the ideal candidate, and finding ways to weave that language into your resume.

In addition to your work experience and qualifications, the following skills tend to be a fundamental part of customer service work, and generally worth highlighting on your resume.

1. Communication

2. Active listening

3. Empathy

4. Warmth

5. Problem-solving

6. Dedication

7. Time management

8. Stress management

9. Product knowledge

10. Customer relationship management (CRM)

Let's take a closer look at each.

Learn more: How to Feature and Format Key Skills on Your Resume

1. Communication

Effective communication is essential to resolving a customer's questions or issues while representing the company in a good light. It’s important that you speak and write clearly, providing useful and helpful responses. With good communication skills, you can confidently build a rapport and a feeling of trust.

Learn more: 22 Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills in the Workplace

2. Active listening

Your listening skills can complement your communication skills. Active listening goes beyond listening to respond; it's listening to fully understand. When you’re working with customers, it’s important to hear what they have to say, ask questions to better understand the matter, and respond with empathy. 

3. Empathy

Empathy is an interpersonal skill often found in successful customer service representatives. Showing a customer that you understand their situation and connect with their feelings are elements of strong customer service. Being empathetic often means thinking about your customer’s situation from their point of view and building a foundation of patience, kindness, and respect as you set about working with them.

4. Warmth

People want to know they are speaking with someone who genuinely cares about their needs, so being personable—connecting with your customers, in other words—is a great skill to feature on your resume. If customers feel they can trust you to help them, it can lead to more effective customer service experiences. 

5. Problem-solving

Customers often reach out to customer service representatives when they have a problem. Being able to think critically about customer complaints and identify creative solutions can go a long way. Problem-solving often involves listening to what a customer needs, determining the source of the issue, and resolving it by turning to your company’s products or services.

6. Dedication

Maintaining high standards, meeting deadlines, and maintaining a professional demeanor are all essential when you work with customers. Dedication and diligence refer your mindset as you approach your work, aiming to consistently provide a positive customer experience and maintain (or exceed) the level of quality expected. 

7. Time management

Not every customer service interaction will last the same amount of time. But as call logs mount or long lines develop in a store, it’s important to manage your customers’ time—and your time—efficiently. It can be easy to lose track of time when you're building rapport, so it’s vital to manage your time and know when to move on, while still being professional and respectful. 

8. Stress management

Customer service jobs can be stressful due, in part, to frustrated or angry customers who may direct their emotions toward you. It's important that customer service representatives are able to separate a customer's emotions from their own. Strong stress management skills enable customer service representatives to balance their emotions and approach customer issues with a positive attitude.

9. Product knowledge

Understanding your company’s products and services is a vital part of any customer service role. Spending time continually familiarizing yourself with your company’s offerings and having up-to-date product knowledge can lead to smoother customer interactions and higher quality customer service experiences.

10. Customer relationship management (CRM)

A customer service representative must be able to use customer relationship management (CRM) databases to document customer interactions and find information quickly. Customer service roles often lean heavily on workplace skills, but CRM experience is technical knowledge that many hiring managers look for.

How to highlight customer service skills on your resume

There are many opportunities to highlight your skills when writing a resume. Here are some places to consider:

Resume summary: A resume summary is a brief explanation about who you are professionally. You can use the description to insert a few phrases, such as “Empathetic customer service professional.”  

Experience: When you craft a chronological resume, you’ll list out your experience by starting with your most recent role and moving backward. Whether you write a brief paragraph summary or use bullet points to list out your responsibilities, this is a great place to show how your skills added value to your work.

Skills section: A dedicated skills section usually falls near the end of your resume and is a chance to list or further detail the specific workplace and technical skills you have to offer. 

Certifications: If you’ve completed any role-specific education or skills training then you should include that information in a certification section on your resume. 

Measuring customer service skills on your resume

More than simply stating the skills you have, it’s important to find ways to express the impact you’ve had as a result of those skills. Adding measurable impact to your examples, such as your average response speed, rate of escalation in complaints, conversion rates, or ratio of resolved versus unresolved issues, can strengthen your resume and your candidacy for customer service roles. 

Examples of expressing your impact include: 

• Decreased average response speed to customer queries from three hours to two hours

• Increased conversion rate by 1.2% in the first quarter

• Decreased complaint escalation to 18 per month 

• Improved customer satisfaction rate by at least 9% each quarter 

Explore further 

Build essential skills to excel in a customer service role with a Professional Certificate from CVS on Coursera. Whether you're looking for a career in retail or remote customer service, learn at your own pace from industry experts while earning a credential for your resume.