How To Become A Retention Specialist: What It Is and Career Path

What is a retention specialist and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Retention specialists interact with customers, members, and employees to increase their loyalty and retain businesses or services. They create and implement strategies that focus on growth initiatives and retention and they handle finances and invoice processing. Furthermore, they help in creating and implementing marketing campaigns. Also, they gather and analyze relevant data and use the results to contribute to marketing operations and assist the sales team. Aside from that, they prepare annual marketing plans and work with various departments.

The minimum educational requirement for this position is a high school diploma. However, some employers prefer candidates with a bachelor's degree in sales, marketing, or a related discipline. Applicants must have three or more years of experience in a similar role. You must possess organization, interpersonal, customer service, conflict resolution, problem-solving, and communication skills. You must also be proficient in Microsoft Office. Retention Specialist's salary varies from $42,455 to $55,720 with an average salary of $47,578 per annum.

ScoreRetention SpecialistUS Average

Salary

2.9

Avg. Salary $37,175

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.9

Growth rate -4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

9.3

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.72%

Asian 6.00%

Black or African American 11.38%

Hispanic or Latino 20.63%

Unknown 5.35%

White 55.93%

Gender

female 63.02%

male 36.98%

Age - 39

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 39

Stress level

5.9

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.6

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.5

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a retention specialist

Explore retention specialist education requirements

Most common retention specialist degrees

Bachelor's

40.3 %

High School Diploma

23.8 %

Associate

20.4 %

Start to develop specific retention specialist skills

Skills	Percentages
Customer Service	26.06%
Outbound Calls	11.02%
PowerPoint	4.76%
Customer Satisfaction	4.51%
Customer Accounts	3.64%

Complete relevant retention specialist training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New retention specialists learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a retention specialist based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real retention specialist resumes.

Research retention specialist duties and responsibilities

Save customer relationship by managing and exceeding TWC goals.
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Increase revenue through up-selling and cross-selling video, HSI, wireless, and telephony services to existing customers.
Provide advance troubleshooting of wireless broadband, IP services, PC's, wireless routers.

Prepare your retention specialist resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your retention specialist resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a retention specialist resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable retention specialist resume templates

Build a professional retention specialist resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your retention specialist resume.