7 Important Things To Consider Before Getting A Customer Service Certification

Customer Service Certification Considerations

The pursuit of a professional certification is an investment in your future.

Like any successful investment, it’s important to assess your personal scenario to determine which options are the best to achieve your goals.

Below are 7 unique considerations for pursuing a customer service certification that you won’t find anywhere else.

1. What Are Your Career Goals in 1, 3, And 5 Years From Now?
2. What Strengths Do You Need To Get Your Next Promotion?
3. Will the certification help you fill in the gaps and build a stronger profile?
4. Is It A Short-Term Or Long-Term Investment In Your Career?
5. Is The Certification The Best Option For Your Career Right Now?
6. What Is The Expected Return On Investment (ROI)?
7. How Does The Certification Fit Into Your Overall Career Narrative?

1. What Are Your Career Goals in 1, 3, And 5 Years From Now?

Having a sense of direction gets you there faster.

It’s normal if you’re not 100% sure what you want to do in life.

But it’s important to have a general idea of what you want your career to look like in the future.

Career goals are like a compass – They point you in the right direction, even as your path changes.

Start with a destination in mind and then back track to figure out how to get there.

Example: Ashley is currently a Customer Service Representative (CSR). She’s great with customers and also enjoys helping her colleagues do better at work. After some research, Ashley thinks that she would like to navigate her career towards a Customer Service Coaching type role.

  • Looking at job postings online and within her current company, she notices that great customer service and leadership experience are common requirements.
  • Fortunately, Ashley already has a stellar customer experience track record, however she’ll need to plan her next steps to gain some leadership experience.
  • As a result, Ashley might consider applying for either a Senior CSR role or even a Team Lead position. After 1-2 years, she could transition into a Team Manager role to add some coaching experience to her resume. In another 1-2 years, with her work experience and good performance, Ashley’s career profile will be strategically positioned to be a competitive applicant for Client Experience Coaching positions and better pay!

One of the most important things we emphasize to CSQA candidates is the value of a career map. It help yous establish a goal-oriented direction for your career, and it also serves as the foundation for building an effective career narrative.

Fact: Career goals and narratives are meant to change. As you progress in your career, you will discover new types of roles where you can apply your experience.

In the example above, as a Manager, Ashley may realize that she has less of an interest in the specific area of service experience coaching and is more interested in people management. As a result, she may choose to pivot her career map and apply for a people manager role in order to become a Group Manager.

It’s natural to change course along the way, but what’s most important is to have direction as you navigate towards your career goals.

A Customer Service Certification should align with your overall career goals.

2. What Strengths Do You Need To Get Your Next Promotion?

Understand that where you are today is just a starting point towards having a successful career.

Once you have a better idea of your current career goals and the type of role you want, it’s important to take some time to understand how competitive your  profile is when applying to those positions.

To do so, make a list of your strengths and weaknesses based on the common requirements of the role.

  1. Search your company’s internal job board and save 2-3 job postings that are similar to the role that you want.

    Tip: Job openings aren’t always available when you’re searching, so make it a habit to plan ahead and browse the postings on a weekly basis.
    When you find the postings, email the details to yourself so that you’ll always have a copy available.

  2. Make a list of a 5-10 commonly required skills, experience, and knowledge areas.
    Items on the list may be general (eg. leadership), qualitative (eg. relationship skills), specific (eg. education) or unique to the role (eg. software).
  3. Once you have the list, rank yourself on a scale from 1 to 5.

    Note: While it’s good to have confidence in your skills, it’s important to be honest with yourself. Recognizing your true strengths and weaknesses is the first step towards career growth.

Example Job Posting

Requirements:

  • Ability to multi-task, set priorities and manage time effectively
  • Be able to effectively work with different personality types, ages, and backgrounds
  • Ability to develop new employees into professional, customer-focused, and sales-motivated representatives


Ranking:

  • Multi-task: 3
  • Time Management: 4
  • Easy To Work With: 5
  • Leadership: 3

Why is this important? 

When you draft your targeted resume for job applications, each bullet should address that position’s specific requirements. The more your profile aligns with the posting, the more competitive you are as an applicant.

You’re capable of doing more today, the challenge is standing out from other applicants.

Understanding the requirements of the job you want will help you decide which certification will make you more competitive.

3. Will the certification help you fill in the gaps and build a stronger profile?

The strongest applicant has a track record that aligns best with the job requirements.

A certification is like a workout routine; pick the exercises that gets you the best results.

You wouldn’t do bicep curls and expect to have shredded abs.

Likewise, a customer service improvement course might not be the right fit if you’re looking to become a manager.

The more shortfalls that a certification program helps you to address, the better.

In general, a certification with a wider scope tends to provide more opportunities than a certification that’s focused on a specific topic. It allows you to evolve your career narrative in a dynamic manner and tailor that narrative for different roles and opportunities.

Sometimes, a topic specific certification may be better suited – when you’re looking to fill an unique resume gap (eg. a technical or software requirement), or if the position is focused on a niche area within the industry (eg. pharmaceutical marketing data analytics).

Regardless of the certification you choose, it should be more than just a bullet point on your resume. It should help you excel in your role today while setting you up for the future.

After all, achievements always look better than a job description.

Each step you take in your career improves your narrative and track record.

Make each step count.

4. Is It A Short-Term Or Long-Term Investment In Your Career?

Don’t just spend for today, invest in tomorrow.

A good certification program should help improve your workplace performance, a great certification program should also help you establish a foundation to grow your career.

What does that mean?

The ideal certification should provide both short-term and long-term benefits.

The value it provides should align with your long term career goals, while also helping you build a track record of relevant achievements along the way.

After all the time, money, and effort you put towards completing a certification, you probably won’t want to repeat the process over and over again each time you want to transition to a new role.

Example:

The career focused Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation is well respected in the finance industry and includes the following subjects:

  • Accounting
  • Economics
  • Portfolio Management
  • Statistics
  • Industry Ethics, etc.

To achieve the same breadth of knowledge through separate certifications, someone would have to pursue the following:

  • Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA)
  • Economics Certificate
  • Investment Management Certificate
  • Various courses in Statistics
  • Financial Regulatory Compliance Courses, etc.

Having a career map will help you determine how a certification will benefit your immediate career and your long term goals.

5. Is The Certification The Best Option For Your Career Right Now?

Like a quick trip to the grocery store, the most comfortable route isn’t always the fastest.

The distance between the starting point and your next destination can have a big impact when deciding on the best path to take. The larger the gap, the more difficult choices you will have to make.

Since Google Maps doesn’t exist for career development decisions, it’s important to take time to review if there are better alternatives to pursuing a certification. If there is a big gap between your current role (eg. Team Lead) and the position you want next (eg. Senior Manager), sometimes a certification program might not be enough to bridge that gap.

In general, careers with steady progression plans have the best use for a certification.

Example:

customer service rep. career example

Riskier moves such as a Team Lead to Senior Manager may require a much larger investment such as an MBA degree.

When you choose to pursue a certificate can affect how it will benefit your career.

6. What Is The Expected Return On Investment (ROI)?

A cost-benefit analysis of an investment in your career growth.

Just because the shoe fits doesn’t mean you need a $500 pair of runners to walk in the park.

The pursuit of a certification is an investment in your career. It requires time, commitment, and money.

Consider the following:

Time

How long will the program take?

Is it a schedule based curriculum or self-paced study?

It shouldn’t take two years to complete a certification for a job you could get in two years anyway.

Commitment

How many hours a week do you have to commit to the certification process?

Does it require assignments to be completed on a regular basis?

The commitment to completing the certification shouldn’t hinder your workplace performance.

Cost

Is it a one time cost, or are there annual membership fees?

What range of salary increase are you expecting compared to the cost of the certification?

If the next job you want increases your pay by $1,500/year, it may not be economical to spend $1,200 on a certification program.

Take into consideration study time and flexibility.

Even though it may make sense financially, you don’t want the time commitment to hinder your workplace performance.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.” – Dr. Seuss

7. How Does The Certification Fit Into Your Overall Career Narrative?

Your career starts when you decide to take an active approach towards building your work experience.

Once you’ve chosen the right certification for your career, the final step is understanding how you’ll put it to use – more importantly, how to integrate it into your career narrative.

Career Narrative: The motivating and aspiring story of your career development, reflected on your resume and shared during interviews to explain why you’re the right candidate for the job.

  • Long version: This is the multi-sequel movie of your career that, may start as early as your childhood. The long narrative is meant to change with time, consist of many challenges and achievements, and can be boring at times and exciting at other points along the way. This is what helps you explain why you’re a great candidate for a job opening, and allows you to dynamically navigate interview questions – almost like easily answering trivia questions about your favorite movie.
  • Short elevator pitch: Not everyone has time to hear about all eight sequels of the Harry Potter movie; likewise, there are times where you’ll need to have a TLDR (too long, didn’t read) version of specific parts of your career to share.

Think of your career as the plot to your favorite movie or book, and you are the protagonist.

  • Your achievements are the action scenes that build character and help overcome trials along the way.
  • The certification is the boot camp montage, the protagonist becomes more equipped for success.

Once you’ve visualized your revised career narrative, the last thing to do is the hardest part, and perhaps the most critical to every successful career – getting started.

Unfortunately unlike the movies, there is no shortcut or montage to fast forward through the process of pursing continued education.

The only way to get your certification faster is to start sooner.

Imagine if you had started 1 year ago, where would your career be today?

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