Do you have a knack for problem solving? Do you enjoy helping people? Or maybe you’re one of the millions of people who need to find a good work-from-home job because of the pandemic.
If so, then a customer service job might be the perfect job for you.
A remote customer service job is a great option for people who want more flexibility and a better work-life balance. You’ll be able to say goodbye to that long commute and spend more time with friends and family.
Customer service is also one of the best flexible jobs for working mothers who need to be home with the kids.
With more than 3 million customer service jobs in the U.S., you’d be surprised by how many companies are hiring. When you’re ready to apply, you’ll find hundreds of remote positions listed on Mother Works.
In this complete guide, we’re going to tell you everything you need to know to land a work-from-home customer service job.
So let’s get started!
A customer service representative provides all kinds of assistance – everything from technical support to product and service information to personalized training.
Customer service agents respond to complaints, answer questions about billing, and connect customers with others in the organization to swiftly solve problems and assure customer satisfaction.
When working remotely, customer service representatives can communicate with customers in a variety of ways, including:
With so many ways to communicate, you don’t have to work in an office cubicle to work in customer service. You can work from the comfort of your own home (or maybe even a hammock!)
According to O*NET, the nation's primary source for occupational information, you’ll need these communication skills to be successful:
How a customer service representative uses their soft skills can have a major impact on the customer experience and the perception of the company.
Just about everyone has suffered through a bad customer service experience.
Just imagine: Your cable service goes out right in the middle of your favorite TV show. You call customer service and the associate who picks up the call starts using so much technical jargon that you have no idea what the problem is or how to fix it.
It’s frustrating to say the least!
How are you going to “rate” this rep once the call is over? What would you say about the company on social media?
It’s fair to say that poor customer service can wreak havoc on a company’s reputation, and that can have a direct impact on the bottom line.
According to the Zendesk 2020 Customer Experience Trends Report, 50% of customers will switch to a competitor after just one bad customer service experience. Add one more bad experience and that number soars to 80 percent.
Conversely, a great customer service experience can enhance a company’s reputation, and increase sales. Customers who have a great customer service experience spend 17% more. And 93% are more likely to make repeat purchases.
It all starts with the customer representative and their ability to connect with customers:
Patience is one of the most important skills a customer service representative can have, especially when dealing with an angry customer. Keeping a cool head when someone is yelling at you is never easy!
When you’re engaging with customers day in and day out, you’re bound to encounter some volatile situations. Maybe a customer is having a really hard time figuring out how to use your product or service or maybe they’re just having a bad day. Whatever the case may be, it will be your job to diffuse the situation and address the problem, so that the customer feels good about the service they received when the call is over.
If you are patient, service-oriented and consider yourself to be a good communicator, then you should seriously consider applying for customer service jobs.
The median wage for a customer service job is $16.69 per hour, but pay can range from as low as $10 an hour to as high as $27 an hour (Bureau of Labor Statistics). The average annual salary is a not too shabby $34,710.
Keep in mind the pay can vary significantly depending on the industry and the company.
Some companies may pay on a per-call or per-email basis or base the pay on how many support cases are resolved. Others may include a bonus or commission to help you earn more.
You typically need a high school diploma. A college education is rarely required.
Training is usually provided by the hiring company and may last for a few days to several weeks. Longer training may be required for customer service jobs in the finance, insurance or IT fields.
If you can check off any of the following experience boxes, your odds of landing a customer service job will improve:
Keep in mind that not all companies require these skills.
If you can demonstrate yourself to be polite, patient, and fluent in the required language, you should have no trouble getting hired.
Here are a few things you’ll need in your home office to be effective as a virtual customer service representative:
When you’re hired, the company will also provide a detailed list of tools and software programs you may need to carry out your job responsibilities. You will be granted access to the company network to access customer account information, and the resources you’ll need to provide assistance.
There are a wide range of customer service jobs with different responsibilities depending on the industry. Here is a list of some of the most common titles and related positions you may encounter in your job search.
Most employees in this position are tasked with managing emails, scheduling meetings, conducting business research, making travel arrangements, and such. If you like to do unique tasks every day and work very closely with people, while still remaining at home, this can be an ideal opportunity for you. Check out our complete guide on how to become a remote virtual assistant.
As outdated as they may seem, call centers are still very much in play. In order to cut down the operational costs of managing a full-fledged building, many companies have gone remote.
With the help of a headset and hi-speed internet, you can guide customers through their problems over the phone.
Unlike customer service reps, customer support reps don’t have to actively engage with the customers. As a remote customer support agent, you will respond to customer concerns and questions, and offer service and product solutions in return.
Customer support engineers provide high-quality solutions to technical problems that customers run into while using a product or service. If you have sufficient knowledge of computer systems or you’ve been thoroughly trained in your company’s software, you can make a decent living as a remote customer support engineer.
This position has all the same responsibilities of a customer service rep, the only exception is that you’ll be working from home. You will reach out to customers and offer them new products, services, company news, discounts, and proactive solutions.
Most remote customer reps have to answer a specific number of emails or calls to meet their daily goals. Because this position is limited to different forms of virtual communication (live chat, email, phone calls, and social media) you can work from any location as long as you have reliable internet access.
A remote live chat agent offers constant support to potential customers, but only via the website’s live chat feature.
This position is perfect for people who are more introverted or prefer quieter work environments. So, if you don’t enjoy speaking with strangers or you have a couple of small children that could hamper a customer communication, a work-from-home live chat position is great for you.
As a customer success manager working from a remote location, you will have to work with customers and help them with concepts such as campaign execution, account management, and product onboarding.
You will be tasked with ensuring that the customers are constantly gaining value from your company’s products and services. This often involves following up with customers assigned to you via phone or email.
Most companies that sell a technical product or service employ remote implementation specialists who help new customers with onboarding.
Your role would be to help first-time users learn the inner workings of the company’s product. You’d also help troubleshoot any technical difficulties that may come along in the process.
Now, let’s get to juiciest part of this guide!
We have compiled a list of the companies that are always hiring for customer service jobs. You can find many of these companies listed on the MotherWorks website.
If you are looking for a rewarding, well-paying career, you can’t go wrong with Amazon customer service jobs. Amazon has a self-proclaimed mission to become the most customer-centric company on earth, and it takes pride in its award-winning virtual customer service team.
As a major company, Amazon is probably already on your radar. But you may not know that customer service jobs at Amazon pay at least $15 an hour, with training and benefits.
If you’re asking whether there are jobs near you, the answer is almost certainly yes, since Amazon employs more than 1 million people worldwide.
If you are interested in working for Amazon, check out our complete guide.
Apply for remote jobs with Amazon
Concentrix is a business services company that facilitates high-quality communication between customers and clients. This is a technology-driven firm that aims to improve business performance and provide customer engagement for some of the biggest brands in the world.
Concentrix has clients across healthcare, retail, media, tourism, energy, financial, technology, automotive, insurance, ecommerce, and transportation industries. And here’s the best part: Concentrix hires people for remote customer service jobs and sales executives.
Apply for remote jobs with Concentrix
What originally started as an aerospace company in 1983, now has over 200 offices in North America and Europe. Aerotek is a global recruiting and staffing firm, and it caters to pretty much every industry in the world, including clinical, aviation, engineering, laboratory, skilled trades, manufacturing, technical, and general labor markets.
The company offers many at home customer service jobs, including customer service specialists and call center representatives.
Apply for remote jobs with Aerotek
Kelly Services is a workforce management solutions company. This is a fancy way of saying that they provide workers to companies across several industries. Their consulting services include business process outsourcing, recruitment, career transition, and executive search.
You can apply for their remote customer support or customer service representative positions at Kelly Services, or you can apply to another company via Kelly’s platform.
Apply for remote jobs with Kelly Services
As the name suggests, the company provides alarm monitoring, fire protection, and electronic security services to businesses, as well as homeowners, throughout the US.
ADT Security is currently looking for remote customer care agents to provide technical support to their customers. Unfortunately, this is not a completely remote role; you must live up to 2 hours from their call center in Irving, Texas.
Apply for remote jobs with ADT
Robert Half International is an American global human resource consulting company. These folks provide recruitment services to businesses in a plethora of industries: financial, accounting, administrative, and technology.
Their at home customer service jobs include customer service insurance agents and customer service representatives.
Apply for remote jobs with Robert Half
Pearson is a British-owned education and learning company that offers an extensive range of tools, services, products, and content for learners, and educators, of all ages. They hire remote professional service reps and customer service reps to provide technical support to their customers.
Apply for remote jobs with Pearson
With 38,000 employees in 19 countries, Sutherland is one of the leading business process transformation companies in the world. It provides technology-enabled services, back-office solutions, and customer support services to their clients.
You can apply for their work from home customer service jobs for customer service advisor, customer support rep, or customer service agent.
Apply for remote jobs with Sutherland
Chase Bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the JP Morgan Group, and is headquartered in New York. They offer seasonal, part-time, and remote job opportunities as virtual banking assistants.
You’ll be tasked with managing assigned customers over the phone and offering them customized banking products and services.
Apply for remote jobs with JPMorgan Chase
TTEC is a customer experience company that helps businesses provide better customer experiences and improve business growth. They currently employ more than 50,000 employees in part-time, full-time, seasonal, and remote job roles.
The number of work-from-home associates at TTEC alone is nearly 20,000. Regardless of where you live, you can apply for their customer service or technical support representative jobs. Since TTEC serves clients in 52 languages, fluency in more than 1 language can put your miles ahead of other applicants.
Apply for remote jobs with TTEC
Salesforce is the world’s number one CRM (customer relationship management) platform. The virtual customer service jobs at Salesforce involve helping the company’s clients coordinate their sales, marketing, service, commerce, and IT operations in order to drive maximum customer satisfaction.
A remote customer service career at Salesforce is not just a job – it is a promising opportunity to build your future. This highly admired employer operates on the core values of trust, equality, innovation, and customer success. You can discover a host of virtual job opportunities in customer service at Salesforce.
Progressive Corporation is a home and automobile insurance company in America. They hire for remote customer service jobs and inbound sales reps to help both existing and new customers. If you think you know nothing about insurance, don’t worry, they will provide training to give you a solid base of industry knowledge.
They pay $17-$19 per hour (plus benefits) depending on the position and your experience.
Liveops is a cloud, call-center company that provides companies across the world with customer service solutions. They currently have over 20,000 independent, remote call center agents working for clients in the insurance, retail, financial, technology, and healthcare industries.
Their work-from-home job opportunities include customer service agents, call center reps, and licensed insurance customer care agents.
As the second-largest bank holding company in America, BOA has more than 5,000 banking centers across the country. And to help run these thousands of centers, Bank of America offers a significant number of remote job positions.
As a work-from-home customer service agent at Bank of America, you will deepen customer relationships by offering relevant BOA products, and address any concerns and questions put forth by customers.
Transcom is a Sweden-based company that offers technical support, customer care, sales, and credit management services. They serve more than 350 international brands in several industries, such as travel, retail, telecommunications, media, and financial services.
As of right now, Transcom boasts nearly 30,000 employees in full-time, part-time, and remote job positions. If you want to work with Transcom without having to leave your home, you can apply for their remote technical support advisor positions.
Raise your hand if shopping at Pottery Barn is one of your guilty pleasures. The super famous brand, along with West Elm, Mark and Graham, PBteen, Rejuvenation, and many others are owned by the Williams-Sonoma Inc.
Established in 1956, the company has more than 28,000 employees, many of them based remotely. Once you’re hired as a home-based customer service associate, you’ll need to undergo training to prepare for your role.
As for the experience, they do prefer applicants who have some call center or customer service experience, but it’s not necessary.
So, there you have it. The Complete Work from Home Guide to Customer Service Jobs - everything you need to know about skills, training, pay, and where to apply.
We have included 16 top companies, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. You can find many more remote customer service jobs by searching the MotherWorks website. We also hope you will check out the tips and resources on the MotherWorks blog.
For people with a high school diploma, a customer service job is a great way to enter the virtual workforce, earn a good living and achieve a better work-life balance.
Good Luck!