How to List Customer Service Skills on a Resume | Best Skills and Examples

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Customer service skills include the soft skills necessary to communicate with others, solve problems, demonstrate patience and understanding, ensure customer satisfaction and resolve customer complaints. Customer service skills are important for service-related jobs, but also apply to any job that involves working with others, completing requests and solving problems. In this article, you can learn how to list customer service skills on your resume by reviewing the examples and following a few simple steps.

What are the best customer service skills to list on your resume?

The best customer service skills to include on your resume are ones that demonstrate your ability to serve others. You will want to evaluate the job description’s keywords to select skills that match the job description keywords.

Examples of customer service skills

When choosing customer service skills to include on your resume, use the skills included in the job description to show you are a good fit for the position. You will notice that the list of required skills may vary based on the position you are applying for. 

Some common customer service skills employers look for include:

Effective communication

Effective communication is the ability to convey thoughts and ideas in ways others can understand. This may include written or verbal communication. This skill is important to ensure customers understand products or services as well as company policies.

Active listening

Active listening is the ability to listen to others with the intent to understand them and without being distracted by external noise. This includes asking questions for clarification, summarizing and paraphrasing to ensure you thoroughly understand the customer’s needs.

Positive language

Communicating with positive language includes explaining to customers what you are able to do for them (as opposed to saying what you are not able to do). This is important to convey a helpful attitude and communicate that your goal is to assist customers instead of giving excuses for why you’re not able to fulfill their requests or resolve their complaints.

Problem-solving

Problem-solving is the ability to find solutions that are mutually agreeable for the customer and the company. This includes recognizing that a problem exists, identifying available solutions and providing the customer with options to resolve the issue.

Patience

This skill involves continued support and engagement with customers without expressing frustration about other things you could be doing. It involves providing each customer with the same level of service and attention.

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and relate to the emotions of others. This skill is important when helping with customer requests and resolving customer complaints.

Resilience

Resilience is the ability to provide quality service without internalizing the problems or attitudes of others. This is an important skill to maintain quality service when assisting a high volume of customers or when working with difficult customers. 

Adaptability

Adaptability is the ability to successfully navigate and respond to change. An example may include adapting to customers’ changing needs. This skill is important to meet changing demands from customers in the workplace.

Knowledge

This skill involves thorough knowledge about your company’s products or services necessary to process customer requests or resolve complaints. It also includes admitting when you don’t have sufficient knowledge to complete a request or resolve a complaint, in which case it is important to direct customers to someone who can help them.

How to improve customer service skills shown on a resume

By following these simple steps, you can improve how you list customer service skills on your resume:

1. First, review the job description

Review the job description for the position you are applying to and identify keywords in the duties, responsibilities and required experience sections. Highlight or list keywords from the job description that are a good match for your customer services skills.

2. Second, consider your skills

Consider the customer service skills you’ve developed throughout your life. Select customer service skills and experience that match the keywords you highlighted in the job description. These are the skills you will include in the resume you submit for this job application.

3. Third, include a skills section on your resume

Create a section of your resume dedicated to listing your skills. Use this section to list specific customer service skills that match the job description keywords and demonstrate you are a good fit for the position.

4. Fourth, highlight skills throughout your resume

When listing experience from previous employment, include experience that demonstrates the customer service skills you selected. Use the keywords you highlighted in the job description as well as similar phrasing to describe your experience. For example, if you list communication as a relevant customer service skill, include job duties in your work history that demonstrate this skill.

When creating bullet points for the work history and work experience sections of your resume, consider specific experience that demonstrates your customer service skills. This allows you to build on the skills section, where you list your relevant experience and accomplishments that specifically demonstrate those skills. For example, you may include your ability to provide exceptional service for each customer when working with a high volume of customers.