Want to gain real business acumen? Skip the MBA.
Most people forget about one of the greatest places to learn how business works. Customer service positions place employees on the front lines. They discover what customers want. What makes them happy. And what motivates them to return (or never come back again).
Let’s face it…
There’s only one way to learn certain lessons. By directly interacting with your customers.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 341,700 annual openings for customer service representatives over the next ten years. That’s millions of opportunities to learn about the business while getting paid to do it.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- How Customer Service Leads To Business Acumen
- Skills You Learn From Customers
- Career Opportunities That Arise From Customer Service Experience
- Business Knowledge Gained From Customer Service
How Customer Service Leads To Business Acumen
Learning from your customers is the best way to build a strong foundation of business acumen.
It may not seem like it when you’re taking calls and answering emails all day, but customer service is fascinating.
Every call gives you a chance to learn about your company. How your products are received. What your pricing strategy is doing. Which advertisements are hitting the mark. How efficient your operations are.
These are things executives try to analyze, but nobody will tell you like the front line employees will. And that goes for problems, too. Customer service representatives hear it first.
For those searching for jobs and wanting to start gaining this experience first-hand, there are plenty of call center representative jobs hiring now that offer great entry-level customer service opportunities.
Customer service reps gain business acumen by:
- Learning how their products sell (or don’t sell) to the public
- Understanding what their marketing team is saying to buyers
- Figuring out where processes succeed and where they annoy customers
- Seeing how pricing affects purchase decisions
This type of knowledge is invaluable if you want to truly understand how a business runs.
Skills You Learn From Customers
Learning how to communicate effectively with customers is only the beginning. There are many more skills you learn from customers that translate to leadership roles.
Problem Solving
Every call is a problem for the customer. They want answers. Solutions. And someone who can help them quickly.
Learning to think on your feet and provide options to the customer are skills you will use for the rest of your professional career.
Customers are sure to appreciate it, too. According to Salesforce research, 78% of consumers said they would contact another company after a mistake if outstanding service was provided. That’s pressure!
Communication
Remember all of those times you had to explain a complex problem in a way the customer understands? Toning down your communication style to meet the needs of each unique customer is something you’ll learn from serving customers day in and day out.
Empathy
Being able to read your customers and understand how they feel is another valuable skill. It’s a lesson in emotional intelligence that will serve you well in leadership positions down the road.
Software Mechanics
These days, customer service representatives are required to understand CRMs, help desk ticketing platforms, analytics software, and more. The more tech-savvy you are, the more you can learn about the inner-workings of a business.
Career Opportunities That Arise From Customer Service Experience
Here’s a little secret…
Once you have customer service experience, you can work in ANY department at any company.
Why?
Because you will have skills that are transferrable to sales, marketing, product, and pretty much any leadership position that focuses on the customer.
The path may look something like this:
- Customer Service Representative
- Customer Service Team Lead
- Customer Service Supervisor
- Customer Service Manager
- Director of Customer Experience
- Chief Customer Officer
But career paths don’t always have to remain in customer service.
Product managers must understand the problems their customers face. Marketing teams need to know what their customers want. Sales teams need to be able to best relate and overcome customer objections. Skills learned from customer service will make you perfect for these positions.
Here’s the real proof companies are investing in customer experience.
And that means there will be plenty of high-paying jobs for people who know what they’re doing.
Business Knowledge Gained From Customer Service
Not only will serving customers provide you with skill sets to help you move up within a company but it will teach you how business really works.
Why chasing repeat business and happy customers = huge dollars
Customer service professionals know how much easier (and less expensive) it is to sell to an existing customer. They learn very quickly how customer interactions can make or break your customer’s decision to return.
Product know-how
Who knows your products better than the people who get feedback delivered to their desk daily? Your customer service team. This type of knowledge is a huge asset when working with your company’s product team.
Competitive insights
Customers are bound to talk about the competition. What they’re doing, what your business could learn from them. You’ll always be gathering information about your competition when speaking to your customers.
Operational inefficiencies
Let’s be honest. There’s got to be a better way. Customer service representatives are prime candidates to figure out where companies waste time and what frustrates their customers.
Building The Foundation For Leadership
You can’t learn every aspect of business from a book.
But you can learn it from the source. Your customers.
Customer service allows you to observe, experience, and correct problems your business encounters.
And those are the traits of a great leader.
Leaders:
- Listen to their customers
- Can communicate under pressure
- Are quick to problem solve
- Have strong emotional intelligence
How does one develop these traits? By working in customer service. Sure, you’ll learn how to do your job by helping customers. But you’ll also be setting yourself up for future success by building your business acumen.
Wrapping Things Up
Building business acumen from your customers is one of the best decisions you will ever make for your career.
You will learn how your business operates by helping those who use your services. What marketing strategies are working. What your products are doing well (and not so well). How your pricing strategy affects your customers.
- Business Skills You’ll Develop
- Career Paths You Could Have
- Things You’ll Learn About How Business Works
Learn how to do your job with exceptional customer service skills. Then use those skills to move up within your company or move into another department.
There will always be a need for customer service rep jobs. So don’t sell yourself short. Start at the bottom and learn from every customer interaction you have.
You’ll thank yourself down the road when everyone else is wondering how you skyrocketed your career by gaining real business acumen from your customers.
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