How To Become A Customer Service Manager
If you want a career that allows you to interact with clients and ensure that they get the best service ever, a career as a customer service manager could be something you’ll enjoy doing. Since this is a management position, your work will not only be limited to handling inquiries from the clients and customers of an organization. You will be integral in developing a customer service policy for the company you work for. You will also get the chance to oversee a staff in charge of providing customer service for the firm. In addition, you will be responsible for looking into and providing solutions for customer complaints that customer service representatives cannot solve.
As a customer service manager, you will need to have excellent interpersonal relations skills as the role involves creating a positive experience for customers. In order to address problems effectively, you need to have patience and possess good listening skills as well. Since this is supervisory position, organizational skills are also a must.
Why Become A Customer Service Manager
A career as a customer service manager is very fulfilling for those who truly love dealing with people and ensuring that an organization puts its best foot forward for its clients. Even more important, this role is very satisfying for those who want a higher degree of responsibility in the field of customer service. Having the opportunity to actually design programs and services that will improve kind of work provided by customer service representatives and solving complex customer-related problems are more challenging and complex tasks.
Being able to actually accomplish these provides a certain level of fulfillment for customer service managers. Another incentive for customer service representatives to strive to become managers is that the fact that the latter earns more.
Customer Service Manager Work Environment
Customer service managers typically work fulltime in a wide number of industries. They can be found in call centers, banks, credit agencies, insurance firms and retail stores. The job can be stressful especially when customer service representatives cannot anymore address issues by themselves and have to refer a particular matter to the manager. If you work in a retail environment, overtime and weekend work may be required, particularly during busy shopping seasons.
Customer Service Manager Salary
The May 2013 Occupational Employment and Wages report of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics does not specifically provide the mean annual wage of customer service managers. However, for public relations managers—the closest in terms of the nature of the job to customer service managers—the mean annual wage is $111,260. This contrasts greatly with the mean annual wage of customer service representatives which is $33,370 in May 2013, according to the same report.
Customer Service Manager Career Outlook
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics does not provide the specific employment rate outlook for customer service managers. However, the agency projected that for customer service representatives, the growth rate from 2012 to 2013 is 13 percent. This is about the same as the average for all occupations. Demand will be high for those in companies operating in customer service-focused industries like call centers.
Customer Service Manager Degree
In the US, those who intend to become customer service managers generally start as customer service representatives where the only educational requirement is a high school diploma or its equivalent. To advance, a bachelor’s degree in management or related course will certainly help. Postgraduate degrees, when combined with the needed work experience will increase your chances of bagging a managerial position in the customer service field.
