One of the most important aspects of any company is customer service and the individuals who fill the customer service role are the ones who keep the company humming and keep the customers happy.
By definition, customer service representatives work to keep customers content with the company’s services and products through their hard work and determination. They are the ones who make sure that a customer knows how to use their product, understands what it is for and aids them in fixing any problems that may arise with the product.
They come in many forms, from front desk clerks who answer customer questions, to those who perform sales calls on customers, to those who work in call centers and answer customer questions from ''How does this work?'' to ''Why won’t this work?''
Not surprisingly, there are many of these jobs open and available to the public due to the high turnover that can occur due to the relative low pay, usually around $20,000 a year, and high stress, due to dealing with irate customers who want to talk to a manager and are venting their frustrations at a customer service representative, even though the customer service representative has little to do with the operation of the service or product.
While it was just stated that customer service representatives get paid little, $20,000, if they work long enough and advance through the company, they can rise to positions of customer service manager, customer service trainer, where they will make $40,000, and customer service executive, where they will make $130,000 to $200,000.
To attain those positions, a customer service representative has to work very hard at their job, excel and prove to management that they are the right people for the position. Often, it will take several years to reach that point in their career where they can actually live comfortably off of what they make in the customer service industry.
Finding a customer service job is very easy to do and usually only entails looking in the classifieds, checking company websites and logging onto monster.com, where a hopeful customer service representative can find the jobs they are looking for in the fields they have experience in.
Of course, in the past ten years, many customer service positions have moved overseas to India where it is cheaper to pay the highly skilled workforce, than it is to pay customer service representatives here.
Customer service representatives may not be the most respected of individuals in the company, but without them the revenue of the company will dry up faster than a drought stricken river.
With bad customer service, a customer will tell their friends and family about what they dealt with, which in turn will turn others away from using the company. However, if the customer has a great customer service experience with a customer service representative, then they will tell everyone about the great service, and by extension, raise the revenue of the company, simply through word of mouth advertising.
