There is a shortage of staff in customer support at the moment, so if you’re considering a career change, you’ll almost certainly have wondered about this niche. Rather than take you through the nitty-gritty of a job description, we thought it would be helpful to learn about it from someone in the role. While all jobs vary, this will give you a good idea of what working as a customer support rep is like.
Bear in mind that a lot of reps work to a shift pattern, as customer support is often available outside standard office hours. Giles, who shares his “day in the life” story below, works four 12-hour shifts per week.
When the shift starts
My shift today runs from 6am to 6pm. I rock up with coffee in hand. I’m a team leader, so I need to show that I am bright and cheerful, even if it is cold and dark out there!
I start by checking the calendar and making sure that it’s a normal run-of-the-mill day. I make sure that all of my team are in, logged on, and ready to go. I deal with some holiday requests.
As the morning progresses, I keep dipping into the queue of customer queries. Calls and requests are filtered through. I typically take ones elevated because they are less straightforward. However, if the queue is getting busy, then of course I pick up a call to help with the pace. I make sure I do a couple of spot checks listening in on calls, or checking emails, just to keep our standards high.
It’s a busy morning making sure we’re keeping waiting times reasonable and we can feel the pressure, but we keep things within our targets.
As the shift goes on
I have a meeting with my supervisor about some of the more complex customer issues. There are a few I haven’t dealt with before, so we need to double-check everything. We do some problem-solving.
Back at my desk, I carry on attending to customer requests. I can see the call queue line growing again, so I’ve picked up the pace. I’m now directing calls to make them faster. I’ve got a new team member, so I field her the more straightforward tasks and make sure she gets some practise using our different communications systems, including the instant chat.
I call engineering for a more detailed chat following up on an email I sent last shift. We’ve spotted a pattern in some of the customer logs and want to get to the bottom of it.
Throughout the shift, I make sure that our knowledge base is being continually updated. This is a really important part of what we do, as it helps to streamline dealing with future queries. In fact, it’s through the knowledge base process that we picked up the engineering concern. Additionally, one of my team members can be a bit tardy with his logs, so I nudge him to check that he’s doing what he should be.
Late in the afternoon, I nip out to a training room with the other team leaders. We are a SaaS company. There have been some updates to the platform and we need to be technically adept in order to support customers. I’ll need to pass all of this on to the team later. It’s always tricky getting training organised because of shift patterns, so funnelling it down like this works well.
End of the shift
We finish the shift within targets and I hand over to the next team leader coming on shift. This switch-over point is always really busy so it’s important to communicate very clearly. I also take them through the product updates.
Get a job in customer support
Customer support is a busy role. If you’d like to find out more, we often have vacancies. Get in touch on 020 7870 7177.
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