By working as a customer service agent you can become an important part of the organization. This section is the face of the organization from the customer's point of view. Moreover people working in such fields are required to have good communications skills.
Every good organization that is striving to make a big name in the market requires employing an adept group of individuals who are capable of managing and pleasing the customers. A customer service agent is that person who is responsible for a wide variety of activities that involves dealing with the customer relationship management.
The primary job of a customer service agent is to hear out the customer and his or her problems as well as queries. This is often accompanied by emotional outbursts from the frenzied customer. A good agent should be ready and capable to handle all sorts of customers. Firstly, he must look into the problems stated by the customer. Delegating the complaints and requests to the concerned department is a part of his work. Updating the status of the complaints and the requests when asked for by the customer and making follow up calls to ensure that the customer is satisfied are also an essential part of an agent's job!
The agent might also be required to maintain the account details of the customers. Even though a technical qualification is not a must, the agent sometimes might be required to decipher the available data and give out feedback to the customer.
The customer service agent should be a qualified degree holder. He or she must have had prior experience in the field of customer management to be considered for the agent position in bigger organizations. They are expected to be fluent and sublime communicators with a knack to handle people.
The customer service agent is also required to be trained in some areas of customer relationship management. While soft skills are a minimum requirement for these agents, they are also required to be cognizant of the use of various paraphernalia ranging from personal computers, digital diaries, and telephone and intercom systems. They should dexterous in retrieving the customer information when requested , keeping track of incoming calls and responses, assigning request numbers, delegating jobs to specific departments and a host of other jobs with the help of computers, which are omnipresent!
In a customer service agent job, you are expected to follow certain etiquette. The agent must be patient enough to hear out the customer even if they are unintelligible or unreasonable. While it is important to try to resolve the issues raised by the customer, one should keep in mind the organizational protocols and procedures. As mentioned before, most customers are bound to sound uncouth due to frustration and the agent is required to stay cool at all times. As they say it is impossible to please all! This should be the epithet that each agent should be associated with when they attend calls. While they must try very hard to satiate the customer it might not always be possible. For a customer service agent position you need to be cheerful to the customer. The agent should articulate that he or she is aware of the gravity of the situation. This is most cases pacifies the customer to a large extent!
The customer service agent usually reports to a middle level manager in the ranks of a team leader. The team leader must have efficient management skills to manage the agents! Customer service agents are required in all sorts of organizations ranging from automobile industries to law firms. These agents might find their career at customer service centers, call centers, support centers and helpline departments of a company. The customer service agent salary depends upon the work done.
Some of the organizations which are insistent on quality maintain an in house customer relationship team which houses the customer service team. On the other hand, several organizations which deal with technology and other stuff look to outsource the job of customer management to relieve them of the task of answering customer queries!
A potential aspirant has a variety of options to choose from in the customer service field and can earn an average amount of around $40,000. They can choose to be in the voice or the non voice support category. Furthermore, certain individuals who have associate degrees in relevant technologies can look for technical support jobs which yield better remuneration than other agent jobs. The bottom line is that this field is very lucrative for many young individuals!
