Customer Support Careers

Grow your career in Customer Support

The nature of Customer Support work tends to lend itself to short-term task management, perfect if cross-things-off-the-list is your natural cadence. You'll always have to keep the next customer top of mind, they’re waiting for you. Deep focus and rapid-fire conversation consecutively can be relentless. However, if this sounds like you, it might be time to think about your career path and where you want to go.

Customer Support and Customer Service are both still relatively new and rapidly evolving career paths. The good news is that they are both integral pieces of new and legacy institutions, so you can guarantee a solid trajectory with new learning every day.

There are two ways to think about a career in Customer Support. If you're eager to get a jumpstart in management, Customer Service is a great starting point to identify how to deal with customers on a daily basis. This enables you to start a career with a large or growing company without much domain experience. By building yourself in at the ground level, you are immediately on the path to leadership and management. Customer service roles sell the value of the organization and management favors the ability to resolve issues quickly. Start your career in Customer Support if you want to stand out from the get-go.

On the contrary, if you're looking to become a specialist in Customer Service, consider joining for the technology and contribution aspect of the job. This is a phenomenal way to expand your resume if you want to grow within an industry versus growing to become a people manager.

  • Think in terms of your resume — If you're looking to demonstrate continued experience in goal-setting and leading new projects, Customer Service might be for you. You will always have new opportunities to try and test new formats for interfacing with customers. Customer service is taught to always set your sights on task completion, and this is a great skill to segway into other job types including marketing, sales, and human resources.
  • Develop and hone skills — Customer Support has many tools that are used to complete their job efficiently and succinctly. From communication tools to intranets to technical documentation, your job is to help facilitate and resolve unanswered questions. If you're progressing in your job, young companies will acknowledge this and build out new roles to support your continued growth.
  • Expand with training and mentoring — Especially in high growth organizations, you will see customer support teams double or triple over a short-term time period. Managers and service leaders look to their new hires to pick up the slack, to identify new opportunities, and they'll likely support you to take on new initiatives to grow yourself and the team as a whole. If formal mentoring programs aren't available, indicate interest in your interview and see where it takes you.
  • Building a knowledge base — While Customer Service may not be the most acclaimed role within a young technology company, it is a place to start. If you're a sponge, and you pick up systems, processes, and people-management principles quickly, there is always room for upward mobility. You will have to put in your time, but there is rarely a position that gives you a better view of a company's outlook than customer service.

Customer Support Positions:

How Much Do Customer Support Professionals Make?

The job of Customer Support Managers can be rewards and stressful at times, but these professionals are usually given incentives for their time, education, skills, and body of experience. Most Customer Service Representatives who work in technical support, technology services or manufacturing, and production companies generally enjoy salaries up to $50,000 per year. Others who may work in ancillary industries as call center managers are not very far behind their more technical peers. Some of the highest paying support management jobs are found in New York, California, and Connecticut.

Entry-Level Customer Support Salary Figures

Entry-Level Customer Service Manager Salary. The average salary for an Entry-Level Customer Support role is $36,578 per year. Skills that are associated with high pay for this job include problem-solving, project management, data entry, risk analysis, and repetition of simple tasks.

Mid-Level & CS Management Salary Figures

The median annual Customer Service Manager salary is $87,669, as of April 29, 2018, with a range usually between $76,508-$104,694, however, this can vary widely depending on a variety of factors.

A Day In The Life Of Customer Service

The duties of customer service representatives may include attracting potential customers by answering product and service questions, or suggesting information about other products and services. For example, you may start a phone call or email conversation by opening a customer account by recording information. You may also maintain customer records by updating outdated account information. Customer Service and Customer Support representatives often are charged with resolving product or service problems by first clarifying complaints. From there, they may attempt to determine the cause of the problem. This will include selecting and explaining the best solution to solve the problem. In a role dealing with fewer, higher value clients you may have to expedite corrections or account adjustments and following up on a consistent basis to ensure resolution and satisfaction.

Must Haves:

Do you have a passion for service? Then this could be the job for you. You must be able to see the big picture as well as the finer details, as your work is across the spectrum. You will deal with small daily matters, as well as larger aims and be setting goals. A systematic organized approach to work is vital.

  • Customer Service
  • Product Knowledge
  • Quality Focus
  • Problem Solving
  • Market Knowledge
  • Documentation SKills
  • Listening
  • Phone Skills
  • Resolving Conflict
  • Analyzing Information
  • Multi-Tasking

Career Potential

As more businesses expand globally, the demand for a strong Customer Support skill set will be highlighted in the following fields:

  • Customer Care
  • Executive Customer Care
  • Co-ordinator Customer Consultant
  • Customer Liaison
  • Customer Service Executive
  • Customer Service Professional
  • Customer Account Manager
  • Customer Account Director

In short, the workplace of the future means this profession is going to rise in the fields of business. If you’re aspiring for a career in this industry, you’ll need to prove yourself by being a fast learner, online savvy, adaptable to the changing rules of the workplace, and highly motivated. You’ll also have to show your commitment to improving your skill set by investigating customer relations best practices.

After gaining experience as a Customer Service Manager, you’ll be able to advance in your career, eventually moving into the sought-after position of an Account Manager, one of the highest-ranking sales positions in a company, who works alongside and reports to the VP of Business Development.

Benefits of working with Premier

Premier is here to ensure that you get the most out of your new position, whether as a contractor or an internal position. See the full list of benefits below, and reach out when you’re ready to consider growing your career with Premier.

Contract

  • Medical, Dental & Vision Insurance
  • Paid Holiday & Sick Time
  • Perks & Discount Program

Internal

  • Employer Paid Health Insurance
  • Internal Perks & Rewards
  • Paid Vacation & Time Off
  • Financial & Retirement Plans
  • Family & Parenting Leave