What's it like being a customer service manager?

I'd love to know what a customer service manager typically does. I'm considering this for a future career and want to understand the responsibilities and challenges they face.

As a customer service manager, your days would typically revolve around overseeing a team of customer service representatives and ensuring that they provide excellent service to customers. While the specifics can vary depending on the industry, here are a few quintessential responsibilities:

One primary task is interacting not just with your team but also with customers. A customer might escalate an issue to you if the customer service representative is unable to assist, or if the customer isn't satisfied with the resolution offered. Using your expertise, you would need to evaluate the situation and provide a satisfactory answer to the customer - this might be anything from issuing a refund to creating a custom solution for their unique problem.

Training and mentoring your team is another key part of this role. You may conduct training sessions, arrange for professional development opportunities, or provide one-on-one coaching to ensure your team members have the skills to succeed.

You would also be responsible for monitoring performance, both in terms of individual team members and for the customer service department as a whole. For instance, you might use metrics such as average call duration, customer satisfaction rate, or number of resolved tickets to track the team's progress and determine areas for improvement.

There is generally some level of administrative work involved as well. This could include creating schedules, managing budgets, hiring new team members, or developing customer service policies.

The challenges in this role often come from managing a diverse team and handling difficult customers. Building a successful team environment requires excellent leadership and communication skills, as well as the ability to handle conflict. Meanwhile, dealing with irate or dissatisfied customers can be emotionally draining. It's crucial to remain cool-headed and compassionate under pressure, and to be able to come up with quick, effective solutions to a variety of problems.

To be successful, you'll need to have a strong understanding of your company and its products/services, a knack for resolving problems, and great people skills. Also crucial is staying up-to-date with customer service best practices and new technologies that could help your team perform more efficiently.