How to Write a Resume for Customer Service That Gets You Interviews!
So, you’re looking at applying for customer service roles and you want to jazz up that resume? Maybe rework the structure and rewrite your previous experience?
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
Here’s what you need to write a resume for customer service that gets you interviews!
- The Look
- The Headline
- Career Objectives
- Education
- Availability
- Skills
- Awards and Achievements
- Use reverse chronological order
- Use action verbs
- Transferable skills
- Spell check
The Look
While it might not be top of your list to redesign your resume, the aesthetic shouldn’t be overlooked. With how tech-savvy most people are these days and the range of free templates out there, you can’t afford to hand in a resume that isn’t visually appealing. A little style goes a long way to getting your CV put on the maybe pile.
You can find free templates online or try Canva. This application has a free version and a paid subscription version. They have many different templates you can tweak to make them look exactly as you want them to.
Include your photo in the redesign of your resume. This helps to personalise your application and can make you stand out from the rest. Here are some examples and free templates for a visual resume that can help you win the role.
The Headline
Create a structure that includes a headline underneath your name such as ‘customer service and sales’. This headline should tell the recruiter immediately what your field is or the job role that you want.
Structuring your resume with a headline like this can help communicate your commitment and passion for your industry.
Include a Career Objective section
You should include a career objective section. This should briefly explain your background and interest in your professional field and where you want to move to next, perhaps even targeting the position you are applying for.
For example, if you have worked in a phone company or something similar you might say: “I am a positive people person with over four years’ experience in customer service. I am passionate about educating our customers on their telecommunications options and helping them to find the best solution for their problems. I am looking for the opportunity to hone my sales skills and gain leadership experience.”
Education
Include an education section on your first page and add anything you’ve done that’s relevant. This includes high school education and if you have completed any courses. For example, there is a course you can take online called Certificate III in Business which has a specialisation in Customer Engagement. This would be the most relevant course to have completed for someone wanting to work in the customer service industry.
This is also the spot where you would include any relevant training you have completed such as a Responsible Service of Alcohol or any short courses or workshops you’ve completed.
Include your availability
Having your availability at the top of the resume, easily viewable might help you. The HR department might only skim a resume for a few seconds before deciding whether they are going to read it through.
They want to see your experience, it’s relevance to their company and the role you’re applying for and whether you can actually work on the required hours.
Skills
Before you list out all your working history, include a brief summary of your skills on the first page. This overview can help to communicate the collective skills you’ve gained over your working life.
Some skills you want to include on a customer service resume are:
- excellent communication skills
- POS skills
- visual merchandising
- track record for exceeding KPIs
- metrics-driven
- people person.
Awards or Achievements
If you have been given an award for anything even remotely related such as a community award, a public speaking award or an employee of the week award you should include it in your resume.
If you haven’t received a formal award, you can also include an achievements section where you list your work achievements. Have you helped with the opening of a store location? Have you been promoted? Have you achieved the most sales for your team or increased sales? Add these in as achievements.
Reverse chronological order
Rather than listing your previous work experience in chronological order, we recommend listing it in reverse chronological order.
This means listing where you last worked and working backwards. This structure is better for recruiters, it gives them your most recent experience first and often times the most recent job role you’ve done will be your most advanced too.
Use action verbs
In the body of the resume when explaining your previous role’s responsibilities and tasks make sure to use action verbs ie; managed, led, oversaw. These action verbs make reading the resume more engaging.
Passive language can subconsciously give the feeling you are not excited about the work you have done or are applying to do.
Talk Up Transferrable Skills
If you haven’t actually worked in customer service but you want to make the switch, talk up your transferrable skills from other industries.
Have you worked with people before? Dealt with complaints or had to advise people on what they should do? All of these skills will help you in customer service.
Spell Check
Do not underestimate the importance of a quick grammar and spelling check. It can all be done on your computer with the click of a button so when we don’t do this, it can communicate that we were too lazy to do it. You don’t want to give that impression.
Run a quick spelling and grammar check on your resume and ask a friend to read through it to see if there’s anything the check doesn’t pick up.
Having another person read through your resume can be a great help. They may be able to spot little things that don’t make sense or a missing word somewhere.
So for your next job search, make sure you’re putting your absolute best foot forward with these tips on how to write a customer service resume that’ll get you interviews!
If you’d like to know more about getting into the customer service industry you can read all about the Certificate III in Business with a specialisation in Customer Service here or you can get in to touch with one of our friendly course advisors here.