Landing a customer service job can be tough.
If you want to beat the competition, you need an impressive customer service CV to grab recruiters’ attention and stand out from the crowd.
This guide (Which includes 3 customer service CV examples) will show you step-by-step how you can create a winning customer service CV and get the job you want.
Guide contents
- Customer service CV examples
- How to write your customer service CV
- What skills do customer service staff need?
- Checking your CV
Customer service CV example
Customer service manager CV example
Bank customer service CV example
The above example CV should give you a good idea of how a customer service CV should look, and the type of information it should contain.
Now, I will explain how you can create your own CV tailored to your unique situation.
Structuring your customer service CV
The structure of your CV is extremely important because it will determine how easy it is for recruiters and employers to read your CV, and find the information they need.
A simple and logical structure will always create a better reading experience than a complex structure.
The infographic below gives a basic outline of how you should structure your CV, along with a few pointers on formatting and style.
CV structure summary
Add your contact details to the very top of your CV to ensure that recruiters can’t miss them when they want to call you in for an interview.
Head your CV up with an eye-catching profile that gives readers a nice summary of your abilities and acts as an elevator pitch.
List your work experience (this could also be voluntary work, placements or school projects if you don’t have any experience yet) in reverse chronological order.
Finish your CV by detailing your education along with any technical skills and vocational qualifications.
Some formatting tips..
- Keep your CV looking professional and easy-to-read by using a clean simple font along with a plain colour scheme.
- Break text up as much as possible to create the best reading experience for recruiters.
- Keep your CV under two pages in length to provide enough detail to impress readers without boring them.
Writing each section of your CV
Now, I will walk you through each section of your CV, and explain what content needs to be entered when writing it.
Name and contact details
Sitting at the very top of your CV, your name and contact details should take up minimum space on the page.
You should include…
- Your mobile telephone number so that recruiters can contact you quickly.
- Your email address – tip: use a professional sounding email address, and not an embarrassing one from your school days – stevens12@gmail.com is fine, badboyz4life69@gmail.com is not.
- Your location such as Liverpool/Leeds/London
But you don’t need to include…
- Your full address – it’s too much information at this stage
- Your date of birth – hiring decisions are not based on age
- A photograph – Employers do not need to know what you look like – only what skills you have
CV profile
If you want to hold recruiters’ attention, and really wow them when they open your CV, you must write a punchy profile at the top.
A profile is an introductory paragraph which highlights all of your most important skills and knowledge for customer service advisor roles.
Here is an example:
The type of things employers will want too see in your profile are:
- What kind of customer service skills do you have? Communication, product knowledge, interpersonal skills etc.
- What type of companies have you worked for? Retailers? Restaurants?
- What relevant qualifications do you have?
Use positive persuasive language throughout your profile and really sell yourself – don’t be afraid to brag a little.
Quick tip: If you struggle with spelling and grammar, try our quick-and-easy CV Builder
Also, check out our customer service cover letter example.
Core skills section
A great way to ensure that recruiters don’t skip past your CV, is to add a core skills section.
A core skills section is simply a bullet pointed list split over two or three columns which reiterates your most valuable skills. It creates a snapshot of your abilities so that recruiters can get an instant idea of your offerings within seconds of opening your CV.
You can also swap these points around if you need to tailor your CV for a specific role.
For example a clothing store customer service role might require slightly different skills to an insurance call centre role, so you’d need to adapt your core skills accordingly.
Work experience
Detailing your work experience gives you a great opportunity to showcase your ability to apply your skills and knowledge in the workplace.
If you already have some customer service experience then great, you should try to highlight as much of it as possible in this section.
If you don’t have any direct work experience, that’s fine – you can also include unpaid experience such as volunteering, school work placements and even extracurricular activities here. Just include anything that will demonstrate that you have the necessary skills.
You should list your experience from latest role to oldest role, like this.
Structuring and writing your role descriptions
To prove your value as an employee, it’s vital that your roles are easy-to-read, well written, and demonstrate a broad range of customer service skills.
This example of a role description, gives you an overview of how your roles should be laid out.
Now, let’s take a closer look at what should be included in each section.
Outline/Intro
The first line of your role descriptions should set the scene for readers and allow them to quickly understand who you work for (a small retailer? A big airline?), what environment you work in (shop floor? Call centre?) and what the overall aim of your job there is, in relation to serving customers.
Example:
“Customer facing role for global clothing retail chain working across 2 busy stores, ensuring all customer needs are met and driving sales of all products”
Responsibilities
List your responsibilities within your roles in short bullet points, so that busy recruiters can quickly skim through them. Detail all aspects of your role, and try to showcase as much of your customer interaction as possible. I will talk about the skills that customer service employers look for in a CV in the next section.
Examples:
- “Serving customers at the till, processing transactions and dealing with enquires”
- “Handling complaints and resolving issues to ensure positive outcomes for the store and customers”
- Performing haircuts, shampoos and colours for female customers
Achievements
A really good customer service CV should contain plenty of impressive achievements that show you have gone the extra mile to help your customers and employers. Tag some achievements on to the end of your role descriptions to show recruiters the impact you make – and try to include numbers where possible
Examples:
- “Resolved 95% of all allocated complaints within 4 day target timeline and won best barista of the month”
- “Sold over 300 units of luxury goods and awarded top regional sales award”
What do employers look for in a customer service CV?
Most businesses and public sector organisations require customer service staff, but there is an especially big demand within B2C organisations such as retailers, insurance firms, restaurants and leisure services etc.
Customer service requires a broad range of skills, here is a list of the most important ones that employers will expect to see in your CV.
- Meeting and greeting – The ability to make customers feel welcome and comfortable is essential in a customer facing role and extremely important to a company’s reputation.
- Transaction processing – Whether you take card details over the phone or handle cash over a till, dealing with customer transactions is a valuable skill.
- People skills – Customer service roles revolve around the customer, so it makes sense that your CV should showcase your ability to deal with people positively.
- Complaint handling – Unfortunately complaints will arise in any customer service role – but if you can demonstrate your ability to handle them well, and create effective resolutions for both the customer and employer, it will look great on your CV
- Sales – Customer service staff are on the front line of any company’s sales, so good sales skills are vital.
- Product knowledge – Customers will often have questions to ask before making a purchase, and a good customer service agent will have the ability to familiarise themselves with their employer’s products, and give out sound advice.
- Communication – written and verbal communication between customers colleagues and managers are required frequently in customer service work.
- Team work – Serving customers is a team effort, so give some examples of your ability to work within teams in your CV.
Education & qualifications
Add your education and qualifications to the bottom of your CV for completion. You should add your formal education such as:
- GCSE’s
- A levels
- Degree
As well as any specific customer service qualifications such as an NVQ in customer service.
Skills and experience tend to be more important in customer service environments, so there’s no need to go into much detail in your education section.
Interests and hobbies
Your hobbies and interests outside of work are an optional section and won’t always make a huge difference in a hiring decision.
However, there are two situations where they can influence a recruiter’s decision.
a) You have no experience
To compensate for a lack of work experience, you can use your interests as a means of showcasing your relevant skills. For example if you captain a sports team, that can demonstrate leadership, motivation and communication skills.
b) You have highly relevant interests
If you have interests outside of work that are directly related to customer service, then it’s definitely worth including them. For example, you might volunteer at a local event which requires you to deal with the public and utilise lots of customer service skills.
If you have popular interests such as eating out and going to the cinema, they are unlikely to have a big effect on a recruiters decision to call you – so keep them brief or omit them completely.
Finalising your customer service CV
Once you’ve used this guide to create your customer service CV, you should proofread it several times to ensure that there are no typos or grammatical errors. Nothing will scare off an employer more than a CV full of sloppy mistakes – it’s your professional marketing document, so it needs to be flawless.
With a punchy profile that really sells your most valuable talents, and well written role descriptions that are tailored to showcase customer service skills, you should have a winning customer service CV at your disposal.
You may also be interested in our waiter/waitress CV example.
Applying for roles
Once you have created your CV, don’t stop the hard work there.
Apply for plenty of customer assistant roles across the job websites, company career pages and LinkedIn. Maybe even set yourself a daily or weekly application target to ensure you stay on track.
To save time, create a cover letter template to use when sending applications. Don’t be deterred if you don’t get many responses to start with, keep preserving and adapting from feedback until you start seeing results.
More regions: Customer service resume (USA) | Customer service resume (Australia)