Job type

Customer service assistant

£16k - £30k

Typical salary

37 – 40

Hours per week

Customer service assistants deal with customers' queries, purchases and complaints.

More info

  • A great way to develop your customer service and negotiation skills
  • You'll need to be friendly, calm and patient
  • Opportunities to progress into management and other supervisory roles

As a customer service assistant you could work in a variety of sectors like retail, finance, travel, manufacturing or for a local authority.

DAY-TO-DAY DUTIES

  • Answering customers' questions by phone, email, webchat, or face to face
  • Selling products or services
  • Handling complaints or passing them to a manager
  • Entering customer information onto a computer database
  • Taking payment for goods or services or giving refunds
  • Tracking orders
  • Giving quotations
  • Checking product availability

DAY-TO-DAY ENVIRONMENT

You may have to work shifts including evenings and weekends and part-time work is common.

You'll need

This role would be ideal for someone with excellent customer service skills, the ability to handle difficult situations, and IT and administration skills.

There are no set requirements, but you may need GCSEs in English, maths and ICT.

You could take a college course before applying for a job in a Level 1 Certificate in Customer Service or a Level 2 Certificate in Contact Centre Operations to gain some of the skills needed for this job.

You can also do an intermediate or advanced apprenticeship in customer service or you can apply for jobs directly.

Employers may expect you to have customer service experience, for example from working in a shop, hotel or contact centre and have good communication skills and a friendly personality.

CAREER PROSPECTS

With experience, you could progress to team leader or customer services manager. You could also move into sales or account handling.