What does a Customer Service Leader do?
A customer service leader is responsible for managing a group of customer service staff to provide the best customer service for the company's clients, ensuring immediate action and resolution for all their inquiries and concerns. Customer service leaders regularly offer coaching opportunities for the team, identify their challenges, and provide strategic procedures to improve their interaction with the customers. They also help senior management search for business opportunities that would drive more revenue for the company and achieve profitability goals.
Customer service leader responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real customer service leader resumes:
- Interact extensively with customers to achieve timely issue resolution while maintaining high standards for dock organization and cleanliness.
- Use of multiple computer programs like word, excel, PowerPoint, PowerBooks, spreadsheets, etc.
- Assist owner with the testing and implementation of retail POS system; establish inventory, pricing, and hot key entry.
- Maintain current knowledge of Kansas Medicaid guidelines and claims processing regulations.
- Accommodate the medical needs of Medicaid and Molina beneficiaries within the immigrant community.
- Provide training to client base including operating procedural upgrades to meet ISO certification standards.
- Prepare customer service activities reports including KPI's, daily/weekly operations reports both externally and internally.
- Develop, document, and implement effective customer-focuse procedures and policies, and ensure their compliance with establish corporate ISO requirements.
- Prepare all shipments for USPS or for commercial delivery.
- Start as a cashier, move to layaway and move onto front end supervisor.
- Process cash and credit card payments as well as stipends, coupons, WIC, etc.
- Help customers with questions, answer phone calls, stock shelves, place orders onto layaway.
- Train CSRs struggling with company procedures and contribute to significant improvements in their performance.
- Contribute significantly to exploiting market share through enhance customer QA programs.
- Develop and maintain performance quality database for call performance metrics of Cigna employees.
Customer service leader skills and personality traits
We calculated that 11% of Customer Service Leaders are proficient in POS, Sales Floor, and Store Management. They’re also known for soft skills such as Computer skills, Customer-service skills, and Interpersonal skills.
We break down the percentage of Customer Service Leaders that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- POS, 11%
Assisted with calls from Secure Horizons members and members who are enrolled in the POS plan.
- Sales Floor, 10%
Supervised sales floor personal by scheduling and assigning to different departments.
- Store Management, 9%
Coordinated with store management for efficient project completions and training of associates given secondary job duties as product assembler.
- Product Knowledge, 9%
Trained new Customer Service Associates for this well-known financial institution by providing mentoring opportunities and product knowledge training.
- Strong Customer Service, 7%
Manage daily operations of the store * Responsible for inventory * Ensure strong customer service and satisfaction
- Customer Transactions, 6%
Provided a great customer experience and assisted in deescalating poor experiences Handled cash/ credit card refunds/ transactions Assisted cashiers with customer transactions
Most customer service leaders use their skills in "pos," "sales floor," and "store management" to do their jobs. You can find more detail on essential customer service leader responsibilities here:
Customer-service skills. Another soft skill that's essential for fulfilling customer service leader duties is customer-service skills. The role rewards competence in this skill because "representatives help companies retain customers by professionally answering questions and helping to resolve complaints." According to a customer service leader resume, here's how customer service leaders can utilize customer-service skills in their job responsibilities: "monitored sales, customer complaint, csr, and loss prevention* opened and closed store* issued out banks to the employees"
Interpersonal skills. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of customer service leaders is interpersonal skills. This skill is critical to many everyday customer service leader duties, as "representatives should be able to create positive interactions with customers." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "led positive customer relations with customers and co-workers by using good interpersonal communication/comprehension skills. "
Listening skills. For certain customer service leader responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "listening skills." The day-to-day duties of a customer service leader rely on this skill, as "representatives must listen carefully to ensure that they understand customers in order to assist them." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what customer service leaders do: "identified potentially fraudulent transactions and communicated them to loss prevention. "
Patience. Another crucial skill for a customer service leader to carry out their responsibilities is "patience." A big part of what customer service leaders relies on this skill, since "representatives should be patient and polite, especially when interacting with dissatisfied customers." How this skill relates to customer service leader duties can be seen in an example from a customer service leader resume snippet: "practice patience while identifying customer issues and finding solutions. "
Communication skills. Lastly, "communication skills" is an important element of what a customer service leader does. Customer service leader responsibilities require this skill because "customer service representatives must be able to provide clear information in writing, by phone, or in person." This resume example highlights how customer service leader duties rely on this skill: "led and developed a talented team, maintained compliance and built customer relationships through effective communication and relationship-building skills. "
The three companies that hire the most customer service leaders are:
- Ocean State Job Lot153 customer service leaders jobs
- Kwik Trip135 customer service leaders jobs
- Carter's130 customer service leaders jobs
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Customer service leader vs. Customer associate
A customer associate is responsible for providing the best customer service by assisting the customers with their inquiries and concerns, as well as resolving their complaints, processing replacements, and issuing refunds as needed. Customer associates also sell products and services to the customers, demonstrating product features, and identifying business opportunities to drive more revenues and profits for the business. They must have excellent communication and organizational skills to process orders and payments timely and accurately.
While similarities exist, there are also some differences between customer service leaders and customer associate. For instance, customer service leader responsibilities require skills such as "basic math," "store management," "first hand," and "strong customer service." Whereas a customer associate is skilled in "phone calls," "stock merchandise," "customer retention," and "customer problems." This is part of what separates the two careers.
Customer associates earn the highest salaries when working in the telecommunication industry, with an average yearly salary of $33,698. On the other hand, customer service leaders are paid more in the transportation industry with an average salary of $34,987.The education levels that customer associates earn slightly differ from customer service leaders. In particular, customer associates are 0.4% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a customer service leader. Additionally, they're 0.0% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Customer service leader vs. Account manager and customer service manager
An associate customer service representative is responsible for providing high customer service by assisting customers on their inquiries and concerns, as well as resolving and escalating high-level complaints to the supervisor or tenured customer service representative. Associate customer service representatives also process orders and payments from the customers, replacing defective items, and issuing refunds as needed. They must have excellent communication and organizational skills, especially on handling data processing procedures to the database for reference to customer concerns.
Each career also uses different skills, according to real customer service leader resumes. While customer service leader responsibilities can utilize skills like "basic math," "pos," "sales floor," and "store management," account manager and customer service managers use skills like "account management," "purchase orders," "vendor invoices," and "payroll."
Account manager and customer service managers earn similar levels of education than customer service leaders in general. They're 1.4% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.0% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Customer service leader vs. Associate customer service representative
A senior customer service representative specializes in communicating with clients and providing them with the needed assistance. Aside from responding to calls and inquiries, a senior customer service representative must also perform basic administrative support tasks such as producing reports and necessary documentation, updating the database, and maintaining correspondence. With years of extensive expertise and knowledge, they are also responsible for leading and supervising a team of customer service representatives, all in the joint effort to secure customer satisfaction and reach sales targets.
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a customer service leader is likely to be skilled in "basic math," "store management," "first hand," and "strong customer service," while a typical associate customer service representative is skilled in "patients," "medicare," "process payments," and "customer relationships."
Associate customer service representatives earn the best pay in the finance industry, where they command an average salary of $37,473. Customer service leaders earn the highest pay from the transportation industry, with an average salary of $34,987.When it comes to education, associate customer service representatives tend to earn similar degree levels compared to customer service leaders. In fact, they're 0.4% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.2% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Customer service leader vs. Senior customer service representative
Even though a few skill sets overlap between customer service leaders and senior customer service representatives, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a customer service leader might have more use for skills like "basic math," "pos," "sales floor," and "store management." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of senior customer service representatives require skills like "windows," "inbound customer calls," "customer relationships," and "bank products. "
Senior customer service representatives enjoy the best pay in the technology industry, with an average salary of $36,710. For comparison, customer service leaders earn the highest salary in the transportation industry.In general, senior customer service representatives hold similar degree levels compared to customer service leaders. Senior customer service representatives are 0.5% more likely to earn their Master's Degree and 0.1% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Types of customer service leader
Updated January 8, 2025