By Janaka Kumarasinghe
Customer Service is increasingly becoming a vital business practice as organizations realize the benefits of Customer Service Management. Customer service also called in many other terms such as customer care/ operations/ relationship and client service is rapidly becoming professionalized and is offering many employment opportunities to young people. At a time when manufacturing is becoming expensive, Sri Lanka will have more and more opportunities in customer service as a growing service hub in the region.

Customer service is the provision of services to customers before, during and after a purchase. It is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction - that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation. Today organizations are facing severe competition and customers and the consumers are becoming more and more knowledgeable and demanding. Organizations need to make their value offering more attractive than the rest of the competition. They must find ways to differentiate and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage over their rivals. A way is to differentiate is through superior customer service.

An individual might think why I should seek job opportunities in customer service. One important fact is that there are several training and job openings in customer service as it is becoming important for organizations. Also it is not only a job but a career too, as shown below.

Not only in Sri Lanka but there are opportunities for customer service professionals in other countries such as the Middle East and Australia. Higher level experience in customer service is an eligibility criteria for migration too.

Furthermore, customer service is a stepping stone to many other careers in organizations as the experience in handling outside customers will definitely help a person to acquire and develop many skills. They will learn to please external and internal customers( staff members ) too. A person with customer service experience can switch into many other disciplines such as sales, marketing , HR and public relations with further training in those areas. Also there are customer service opportunities in several industries as mentioned below.

• Telecommunication
• Banking & Finance
• Insurance
• Hotel & Leisure
• Retail and Super Market Chains
• Education
• Service Centers
• BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)
• Shipping and Freight Forwarding
• Air Line and Ticketing
• Advertising and Media
• Public Sector
• Tele Marketing
• Non Governmental Organizations
• Event Organizing
• Logistics

One might think what are the attributes to become a good customer service executive. Some of the following traits with additional training will help to become successful in such a profession.

Attributes

• Good listening ability
• Friendliness
• Service attitude( E.g. I am there because of the customer)
• Fluency in language (mostly in English)
• Patience
• Empathy( ability to see the problems from other person's perspective)
• Analytical ability

How to Find Job and Grow in the Job
If you look into job related paper advertisements and websites you can find several related jobs or traineeships. One would think, how I should acquire skills to enter such a field or develop in such a profession.

Now there are certificate programmes offered by organization in this area. Also, marketing professional qualifications touch upon customer service . Further , once you join an organization several organizations offer on-the-job and off-the- job training to customer care staff to develop themselves. Therefore, if you have the right attributes and mindset better start with an organization even as a trainee, where you can grow within that organization or outside.

Also the final advice to young people is whatever you select, do it diligently. Opportunities could knock the door from nowhere. That is how many people in the world have become successful in their own areas of work.

Janaka Kumarasinghe, is FIPM qualified
Director- Kent Ridge( Pvt.) Ltd.
Past President IPM Sri Lanka/Executive Committee Member OPA
Visiting Lecture in HRM, University of Colombo and Moratuwa
BCom( University of Colombo)
MSc(HRM)( National University of Singapore)