Education

• Employees can start a customer service career with a high school diploma or its equivalent. On-the-job training is usually the way these professionals gain and hone skills. Some industries may require formal education in the way of an associate or higher degree but is up to the individual employer.
  
  

Salary

• Customer service representatives are paid on an hourly rate. According to Payscale.com, entry level reps are paid $8.70 to $12.20 an hour. Reps with up to four years or experience make $9.75 to $13.53 an hour and workers with five or more years of experience earn up to $16.24 an hour. Pay rates and scales change from industry to industry and depend on locale and nature of customer service work.
  
  

Geography

• Individuals that perform customer service-related duties work in a wide variety of industries that offer services to customers. They work in call centers, as bank tellers, retail associates, fast food workers, libraries and other public domains that give the customer a choice of choosing a particular service.
  
  

Function

• Helping the customer in any way is the sole duty of professionals in this field. They generally answer basic customer inquiries and handle simple problems related to the customer's accounts or ordering status. He resolves issues face-to-face, by telephone, email, fax or mail. Customer service representatives are not sale associates but can help in the upsale of a product or purchase by explaining the benefit of separate or combined services or products.
  
  Some workers spend all day on the phone---reps working in a call center. Others handle financial accounts, paperwork, policies, renewals, returns, exchanges or service situations that involve restoring services or technical issues.
  
  

Skills

• It is important for customer service representatives to be willing to work on a flexible schedule---being that customer service industries usually operate on a 24/7 basis. They are able to work in busy and noisy environments. Employees have excellent communication skills in the way of verbal and written communication. Problem solving and multi-tasking is beneficial for workers in the industry as well. She has the special skill of dealing with difficult customers. She has a good command of general computer applications and basic math skills.