Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Customer Service Coordinator
💰 $40,000 - $60,000
🎯 Role Definition
The Customer Service Coordinator is the day-to-day operational anchor for customer support and client-facing processes. This role manages inbound and outbound customer communications, coordinates cross-functional responses to complex issues, maintains CRM and ticketing systems, enforces SLAs, and drives continuous improvement initiatives to increase customer satisfaction, first-contact resolution and retention. The ideal candidate combines excellent written and verbal communication, hands-on systems proficiency (CRM/ticketing), strong problem solving, and an outcomes-driven mindset to streamline workflows and deliver consistent, measurable service excellence.
📈 Career Progression
Typical Career Path
Entry Point From:
- Customer Service Representative (call center or virtual support)
- Retail Sales Associate or Frontline Service Associate
- Administrative Assistant with client-facing responsibilities
Advancement To:
- Senior Customer Service Coordinator or Team Lead
- Customer Success Manager / Client Services Manager
- Operations Manager or Service Delivery Manager
Lateral Moves:
- Account Coordinator / Client Relations Specialist
- Sales Support Specialist or Order Management Coordinator
- Quality Assurance Analyst (Customer Support)
Core Responsibilities
Primary Functions
- Manage a high-volume queue of inbound customer inquiries across phone, email, live chat, and social channels using the company CRM/ticketing system; triage, prioritize, and resolve issues according to SLA targets while documenting case notes and outcome summaries.
- Own the escalation process: act as the primary coordinator between frontline agents, technical teams, product managers, and external vendors to resolve complex or high-priority customer escalations within defined timeframes.
- Process and validate orders, returns, refunds, credits and replacements in enterprise order management and billing systems while ensuring accurate documentation, inventory adjustments, and timely communication to customers.
- Monitor daily SLAs and key performance metrics (e.g., average handle time, first contact resolution, CSAT/NPS scores); prepare, distribute and present weekly performance reports to stakeholders and recommend operational improvements.
- Maintain and improve the company knowledge base/FAQ: write, edit and publish clear step-by-step articles, canned responses, and troubleshooting guides based on recurring issues and product updates.
- Coordinate service delivery and scheduling with logistics, fulfillment, and field teams to ensure on-time deliveries, installations or technician visits; proactively inform customers of status changes and manage exceptions.
- Conduct root cause analysis for recurring support trends (product defects, billing discrepancies, process gaps) and collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Billing to implement corrective actions and long-term fixes.
- Provide phone and chat support for escalated or sensitive customer conversations, using de-escalation techniques, empathy and effective verbal negotiation to recover troubled accounts and preserve customer lifetime value.
- Maintain accurate customer records and update contact, preference and contract information in CRM (Salesforce, Zendesk or equivalent), ensuring data integrity and compliance with privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
- Implement and maintain routing rules, escalation matrices and automation workflows in the ticketing system to optimize case distribution and reduce time-to-resolution.
- Train, onboard and mentor new customer service representatives on policies, systems, scripts and quality standards; conduct coaching sessions and contribute to performance reviews.
- Coordinate cross-department projects such as policy rollouts, new product launches, or billing platform migrations, acting as the operational lead for customer-impacting activities and communications.
- Manage subscription changes, renewals, upsell referrals and account adjustments in collaboration with Sales/Account Management to ensure smooth transitions and accurate invoicing.
- Audit closed tickets and communications for quality assurance, compliance and coaching opportunities; compile trends into actionable recommendations and training materials.
- Handle special projects such as database cleanups, CRM migrations, or implementation of chatbots and self-service portals; validate post-launch performance and user adoption.
- Serve as the point of contact for third-party integrations and vendor support (payment processors, logistics partners, chat/phone providers), managing incidents and ensuring continuity of service.
- Facilitate customer feedback loops by collecting verbatim comments from support interactions, categorizing feedback, and delivering prioritized insights to Product and Marketing teams.
- Prepare and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs), escalation guides and service playbooks to standardize responses and reduce variability in customer experience.
Secondary Functions
- Support ad-hoc reporting requests and create dashboard views in Excel, Google Sheets, or BI tools to help stakeholders monitor customer health and operational stability.
- Assist in the design and rollout of customer journey maps and service blueprints to identify friction points and opportunities to automate or improve workflows.
- Participate in cross-functional sprint planning and agile ceremonies related to customer-impacting tickets and product fixes, bringing voice-of-customer context to prioritization.
- Lead or participate in periodic tabletop exercises and incident response drills to validate escalation paths and communication plans for major outages or service disruptions.
- Coordinate multilingual support coverage or outsource partner relationships, including creating standardized scripts and performance SLAs for vendor-managed agents.
- Support billing reconciliations, payment disputes and collections handoffs by validating supporting documentation and drafting customer-facing communications that maintain brand tone and compliance.
Required Skills & Competencies
Hard Skills (Technical)
- Proficient with CRM and ticketing platforms (Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk, Freshdesk, ServiceNow) — creating, routing, and resolving tickets with reliable documentation.
- Strong Excel and Google Sheets skills: pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, data cleaning, and basic charting for weekly and monthly reports.
- Experience with order management, billing systems and returns processing platforms (e.g., NetSuite, SAP, Shopify admin tools, Stripe/PayPal reconciliation).
- Familiarity with IVR and VoIP phone systems (RingCentral, Five9, Twilio) and best practices for call routing and voice analytics.
- Knowledge of customer satisfaction and contact center KPIs (CSAT, NPS, FCR, AHT, SLA adherence) and experience generating and interpreting KPI dashboards.
- Basic SQL or ability to run queries for ad-hoc data pulls (preferred) and experience exporting and sanitizing datasets for analysis.
- Experience with knowledge base/KB platforms and content management (Confluence, HelpScout, Guru) including SEO-friendly article writing for self-service.
- Practical understanding of data privacy and security requirements (GDPR, CCPA) for handling personal data in customer communications.
- Hands-on experience implementing automation and workflow tools (Zapier, Workato, Salesforce Flow) to reduce manual steps and repetitive tasks.
- Familiarity with chat platforms and live chat tools (Intercom, LiveChat, Drift) and omnichannel routing best practices.
Soft Skills
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with a clear, professional tone and the ability to tailor messages to different audiences.
- Strong customer empathy and active listening skills; proven ability to de-escalate emotionally charged situations while preserving relationships.
- Analytical problem-solving mindset: able to synthesize customer issues, identify root causes, and propose practical, scalable solutions.
- Time management and prioritization under pressure: robust ability to manage competing demands and maintain SLA compliance.
- Attention to detail and high levels of accuracy in data entry, ticket documentation and billing adjustments.
- Collaborative team player who partners effectively with Product, Engineering, Sales and Logistics to resolve customer issues end-to-end.
- Coaching and mentoring aptitude: can train frontline staff and deliver constructive feedback to improve performance.
- Adaptability and learning agility to onboard new tools, processes and product changes rapidly.
- Initiative and process improvement orientation: demonstrates continuous improvement behaviors and drives small-scale wins.
- Conflict resolution and negotiation skills to handle refunds, service credits and contract discussions when necessary.
Education & Experience
Educational Background
Minimum Education:
- High school diploma or equivalent required.
Preferred Education:
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Communications, Logistics, or related field preferred.
Relevant Fields of Study:
- Business Administration
- Communications
- Information Systems
- Supply Chain / Logistics
- Customer Experience / Service Management
Experience Requirements
Typical Experience Range:
- 1–4 years of customer service or support experience in a contact center, e-commerce, SaaS, retail, or logistics environment.
Preferred:
- 3+ years in a coordinator or specialist role supporting multi-channel customer service, with demonstrable experience using CRM/ticketing platforms, managing escalations, and improving SLA performance.
- Prior experience working with cross-functional product, operations or fulfillment teams and leading small process-improvement projects.
- Certifications such as Certified Customer Service Professional (CCSP), ITIL Foundation, or Salesforce Service Cloud Administrator are a plus.