You're going to need a great resume. This comprehensive guide provides proven strategies, skills, templates, and examples for writing a job-winning Customer Service resume based on data from coaching thousands of successful job seekers.
From top to bottom, this guide will equip you with the tools you need to write an outstanding Customer Service resume and increase your chances of landing the job of your dreams.
Here's what we're going to cover:
Here's the step-by-step breakdown:
Wondering what companies are looking for when they're hiring someone for their Customer Service team?
Excellent communication and problem-solving skills are at the top of the list, but employers are also looking for things like empathy and positive attitude. Being able to work well under pressure, adaptability and technical proficiency are also important. Employers are looking for candidates who pay attention to detail, have excellent time management skills and are dedicated to ensuring customers have a top-notch experience.
Your resume should show the company that your personality and your experience encompass all of these things.
Additionally, there are a few best practices you want to follow to write a job-winning Customer Service resume:
Let's dive deeper into each of these so you have the exact blueprint you need to see success.
Keywords are one of the most important factors in your resume. They show employers that your skills align with the role and they also help format your resume for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).
If you're not familiar with ATS systems, they are pieces of software used by employers to manage job applications. They scan resumes for keywords and qualifications and make it easier for the employers to filter and search for candidates whose qualifications match the role.
If you want to win more interviews and job offers, you need to have a keyword-optimized resume. There are two ways to find the right keywords:
The first is to leverage our list of the best keywords and skills for an Customer Service resume.
These keywords were selected from an analysis of real Customer Service job descriptions sourced from actual job boards. Here they are:
The second method is the one I recommend because it's personalized to your specific resume and target job.
This process lets you find the exact keywords that your resume is missing when compared to the individual role you're applying for.Here's how it works:
ResyMatch is going to scan your resume and compare it to the target job description. It's going to show you the exact keywords and skills you're missing as well as share other feedback you can use to improve your resume.
Here's a video walking through this whole process:
You have a very short window of time to capture an employer's attention–an average of six seconds, to be exact.
To land more interviews an offers, you have to make each one of those seconds count. Start by putting the exact information the reader is looking for at the very top of your resume.
A quick Google search will tell you that a Summary or an Objective should hold this top spot but, unfortunately, that traditional advice simply won't capture your reader's attention. Winning in today's job market means using a more modern approach, what I like to call a “Highlight Reel.”
Here's how it works:
The Highlight Reel is exactly what it sounds like.
It's a section at the top of your resume that allows you to pick and choose the best and most relevant experience to feature right at the top of your resume.
It's essentially a highlight reel of your career as it relates to this specific role! I like to think about it as the SportsCenter Top 10 of your resume.
The Highlight Reel resume summary consists of 4 parts:
For example, if we were writing a Highlight Reel for an Customer Service role, it might look like this:You can see how the first bullet includes the Customer Service job title, the years of experience this candidate has, and it wraps up with a value-driven pitch for how they've helped companies in the past.
The next two bullets are “Case Studies” of specific results they drove at their company. Finally, their last bullet focuses on a volunteering stretch project that led to some amazing results.
This candidate has provided all of the info any employer would want to see right at the very top of their resume! The best part is, they can customize this section for each and every role they apply for to maximize the relevance of their experience.
Here's one more example of a Customer Service Highlight Reel:
While the content in this example is a bit more light, you can see all of the elements of a great Highlight Reel (especially the emphasis on measurable outcomes and results!).
If you want more details on writing a killer Highlight Reel, check out my full guide on Highlight Reels here.
Bullets make up the majority of the content in your resume. If you want to win, you need to know how to write bullets that are compelling and value-driven.
Unfortunately, way too many job seekers aren't good at this. They use fluffy, buzzword-fill language and they only talk about the actions that they took rather than the results and outcomes those actions created.
To help solve this, our team dove into bullets from the best resumes that have come across our desk. We used that data to create a formula for a great resume bullet. Here it is:
If you apply this framework to each of the bullets on your resume, you're going to make them more compelling and your value is going to be crystal clear to the reader. For example, take a look at these resume bullets:
❌ Responsible for increasing client satisfaction rates.
✅ Improved customer satisfaction rates by 15% in 6 months through proactive communication and timely issue resolution, boosting retention and revenue.
The second bullet makes the candidate's value so much more clear, and it's a lot more fun to read! That's what we're going for here.
That said, it's one thing to look at the graphic above and try to apply the abstract concept of “35% hard skills” to your bullet. We wanted to make things easy, so we created a tool called ResyBullet.io that will actually give your resume bullet a score and show you how to improve it.
ResyBullet takes our proprietary “resume bullet formula” and layers it into a tool that's super simple to use. Here's how it works:
Let's take a look at how this works for the two resume bullet examples I shared above:
First, we had, “Responsible for increasing customer satisfaction rates.”
ResyBullet gave that a score of 0/100. Not only is it too short, but it's missing relevant skills, compelling language, and measurable outcomes:
Now, let's take a look at our second bullet, “Improved customer satisfaction by 15% tin 6 months through proactive communication and timely issue resolution, boosting retention and revenue.”
ResyBullet gave that a 73 / 100. Much better! This bullet had more content focused on the specific criteria the hiring team is looking for. We can see by exactly how much they increased customer satisfaction, the skill and method they applied, and that it all resulted in an overall increase in customer retention and company revenue.
Now all you have to do is run each of your bullets through ResyBullet, make the suggested updates, and your resume is going to be jam packed with eye-popping, value-driven content!
And if you want to learn more about the underlying strategies behind writing great resume bullets, check out this guide.
Now let's take a look at all of these best practices in action. Here are three resume examples for different situations from people with different backgrounds:
For our second Customer Service Resume Example, we have a candidate who has a non-traditional background. In this case, they are coming from the wellness industry but have experience working directly with customers. Here's an example of what their resume might look like when applying for Customer Service roles:
For our third Customer Service Resume Example, we have a candidate who has 5+ years of experience and a Masters degree. Here's an example of what their resume might look like when applying for Customer Service roles:
At this point, you know all of the basics you'll need to write an Customer Service resume that wins you more interviews and offers. The only thing left is to take all of that information and apply it to a template that's going to help you get results.
We made that easy with our ResyBuild tool. It has 8 proven templates that were created with the help of recruiters and hiring managers at the world's best companies. These templates also bake in thousands of data points we have from the job seekers in our audience who have used them to land job offers.
Just click any of the templates below to start building your resume using proven, recruiter-approved templates:
You made it! We packed a lot of information into this post so I wanted to distill the key points for you and lay out next steps so you know exactly where to from here.
Here are the 5 steps for writing a job-winning Customer Service resume:
If you follow those steps, you're going to be well on your way to landing more Customer Service interviews and job offers.
Laura is an Editor at Cultivated Culture. She transitioned from teaching into the world of content so she's no stranger to career pivots. She also has a bachelors in Entrepreneurship and a Masters in Curriculum & Instruction / Bilingual Education. She currently shares job search advice to help people like you land jobs they love without applying online.
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