Why Support Jobs are Best for Working Remotely
Remote Job Hunting
We explore 10 reasons why customer support jobs are best for working remotely even if you lack experience. Kick off your remote career in support now:
If you want to know why support jobs are best for working remotely, just take a look at the data.
Nearly half of businesses rank customer experience as their top priority for the next five years — beating concerns like pricing for the #1 spot on their to-do lists [*].
Thanks to cloud-based helpdesk software and VoIP phone systems, remote customer service jobs are on the rise. More businesses are hiring support employees to deliver stellar customer experiences from home than ever before.
But are these remote jobs right for you?
Though often used interchangeably, customer service and customer support are separate roles under the same customer experience umbrella.
We’ll explain their differences and share the top 10 best reasons why you should consider a remote support job to help you decide.
Let’s jump in!
What’s the Difference Between Customer Service & Customer Support?
Customer service and customer support both help brands deliver value to their customers and boost customer satisfaction.
While traditional customer service and support reps work at an on-premise call center, more businesses are moving their contact centers to the cloud. Agents log in to their company’s cloud-based software to answer customer emails, live chat messages, or phone calls from home.
So what does someone in these roles do?
Customer Service Agents are Customer-Focused
Customer service agents assist customers throughout their relationship with a brand. They’re more of a generalist than a specialist and require zero technical know-how. A day in the life of a remote customer service representative may look like:
- Solving billing or delivery issues
- Responding to questions on social media
- Answer non-technical questions
- Collecting customer feedback
Almost every company has customer service employees, so remote customer service jobs are more widely available than customer support jobs.
Customer Support Agents are Product/Service-Focused
Support is a specific subset of customer service focusing solely on a product or service. Customer support helps a brand’s customers get the most out of their product or service by providing technical assistance and resolving problems.
Unlike customer service agents, support reps are technical specialists with both hard and soft skills. A day in the life of a remote customer support specialist may include:
- Answering technical questions
- Troubleshooting
- Conducting usability studies
- Writing knowledge base documentation, help manuals, FAQs, etc.
- Providing feedback to product development teams
Another big difference? Not all companies have customer support. These jobs are usually available at tech, IT, software as a service (SaaS), and eCommerce companies.
So now that you know the difference between customer service and customer support, let’s explore:
Why Customer Support Jobs are Best for Working Remotely
If you’re the first person your friends or family call when they’re having a technical issue, a remote customer support job may be right up your alley. These 10 reasons prove landing one of these roles makes a smart career move:
1. Flexibility To Work From Home (or Anywhere In the World!)
One of the most coveted benefits of working remotely is the ability to clock in from your home office, favorite coffee shop, or even the beach. As long as you have a steady, reliable internet connection, you can travel while working remotely and see the world.
Workplace flexibility also benefits parents, caretakers, people with disabilities, and more. You can work where you’re most comfortable and productive and set up your dream home office to inspire joy during your workday.
Plus, the ability to work remotely means you’re not limited to applying for jobs in your local area. You can find the best remote jobs in different states or countries around the globe.
2. Achieve a Healthier Work-Life Balance
Some of the biggest ways remote support jobs differ from in-person support are the lack of a commute and having more control over your schedule. Both can help you achieve a healthier work-life balance, making another strong reason to work from home.
Ditching a long commute could add hours back to your schedule. You can spend this time investing in your happiness by:
- Meditating or journaling
- Working out
- Socializing with family and friends
- Pursuing professional and personal development
- Engaging in your hobbies and interests
Remote support agents also get to work hours that are more productive for them. So whether you’re an early bird or a night owl, you can balance your work-from-home schedule and personal life to reduce stress.
The physical, emotional, and mental health benefits of working remotely may be life-changing. The perks of hanging with your cat or taking breaks to walk your dog are just icing on the cake.
3. You Don’t Need Experience or a Degree
You don’t need experience working in customer support or a four-year college degree to land one of these remote positions. Snagging these roles comes down to the hard and soft skills on your resume, such as:
- Stellar communication
- Empathy and support
- Patience
- Active listening skills
- Problem-solving
As long as you prove to employers that you have product expertise and the top tech skills for remote work, they’ll train you on everything else you need to know and do in your new role.
4. Become a Subject Matter Expert & Grow Into a High-Paying Career
Support jobs are easily accessible entry-level roles to break into and keep building your career remotely. Here’s why:
You’ll be super productive. Studies show that remote workers are more productive than their in-office counterparts. Higher productivity means you’ll reach your quotas and achieve other performance metrics lightning-fast. This should attract all the right attention during your annual reviews and land you a promotion.
You’ll become a subject matter expert (SME). To be an effective customer support agent, you must develop a deep understanding of your company’s product or service, including how it works, what people often struggle with, and how to answer questions and resolve customer issues quickly.
As you level up your product expertise, you’ll start to:
- Train other reps on the product/service
- Write FAQs, help articles, and knowledge base resources for customers
- Create product walkthroughs and step-by-step tutorials
- Take on more leadership roles
Before you know it, you’ll be climbing the ladder into senior positions. And customer support roles at the top are some of the highest-paying remote jobs.
Growth opportunities outside of management are also within reach. You may be able to segue into product development, sales, marketing, and more.
5. You Can Segue Into Product Development
Customer support agents have a unique combination of product knowledge and customer intel. They often share customer feedback with product development teams and actively collaborate on building new offerings, optimizing product upgrades, and improving end-to-end customer experiences.
This may translate into snagging a seat at the Product Development table — especially if you have experience in software engineering, app building, UI/UX, and other tech skills.
6. Master All Forms of Business Communication
Many organizations take an omnichannel approach to customer support, which means you may be helping customers on support channels such as:
- Phone
- Live chat
- Community forums
- Social media
For example, you may be assigned to phone calls one day and answer live chats the next. You’ll bounce around various communication channels, mastering the nuances of effective remote communication on each medium.
The good news is communication is one of the top skills employers seek in new hires, making you an attractive candidate throughout your career [*].
7. You’ll Level-Up A Ton of Career Skills Simultaneously
If you need more skills to put on your resume, a remote customer support job has you covered.
In addition to expanding your communication and technical expertise, you’ll build and improve hard and soft skills such as organization, problem-solving, creative thinking, conflict resolution, product and market research, and even sales.
You can take all these transferable skills with you as you rack up promotions in customer support, move into different departments, or land your dream role down the road.
Bonus: One of the biggest skills you’ll pick up is actually one of the most valuable in the remote workplace:
8. Improve Your Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence describes the ability to manage your emotions and understand the feelings of those around you. There are five key elements to emotional intelligence. But the three most important you’ll develop in a customer support role are:
Self-regulation. Sometimes customers may take out their frustrations on you. Self-regulation empowers you to keep cool under pressure and de-escalate situations.
Empathy. Putting yourself in your customers’ shoes helps you quickly understand their discontent, build rapport, and solve problems sooner.
Social skills/people skills. Use your active listening skills to ask questions, show attention, and effectively engage with your customers to deliver more positive interactions.
Studies show emotional intelligence may better predict career success than your IQ. People with high emotional intelligence in the workplace have [*]:
- Higher job satisfaction
- Stronger leadership abilities
- Better stress management
- Stronger relationships with coworkers
The emotional intelligence you pick up in customer support could carry you through your career and better your personal life.
9. You’ll Gain Career Fulfillment By Actually Helping People
Imagine it’s the day before you’re scheduled to deliver a huge presentation to your entire office, and your epic slideshow disappears. You’re in panic mode and contact customer support. Then a helpful representative walks you through exactly what to do to literally save the day. You’re eternally grateful.
As a remote customer support agent, you get to be someone’s superhero every single day.
You’ll flex your creative muscles and troubleshoot a range of complex issues to help people. You’ll make a real difference in their lives. They’ll not only be amazed by your ingenious workarounds, but appreciate your ability to teach them something new.
Your career fulfillment meter will always overflow at the end of your shifts.
10. No Two Days are Ever the Same
If you think the movie Office Space is more of a horror flick than a comedy, you won’t be disappointed by a career in remote customer support. With a constant flow of new challenges to tackle, different customers to speak with, and a rotation of communication platforms to use, no two days will ever feel the same.
Plus, many companies are leveraging emerging technologies like conversational AI to make their support teams’ lives easier.
This variety makes the workday fly by and keeps your career from getting stale and boring. So the future of remote work as a customer support specialist may not even feel like work at all.
Ready To Find Your New Remote Customer Support Job?
Now that you know why remote customer support jobs are fantastic for your career, you’re probably wondering how to find legit work-from-home positions.
First, skip the giant job boards that don’t cater to your work-from-anywhere goal. You’ll waste a ton of time and energy searching for support jobs that only exist on-premise (yuck!).
You’re better off hitting up a remote-specific job board like We Work Remotely. You’ll find the best remote customer support jobs worldwide in a few clicks. You can even sign up for a free account to follow companies you’re interested in and receive alerts when the newest support jobs pop up.
Spruce up your resume and be one of the first candidates to apply, and you’ll be thiiiis much closer to landing an interview and kickstarting your career in customer support. You got this! 🙌
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