9 Companies that Hire Home Based Customer Service Reps
Not only is customer service is one of the fastest growing work-at-home jobs, but it also has one of the brightest outlooks. Companies looking to save money are setting up home-based employees to help with order taking and support services in record numbers. These companies range in size and scope including airlines, mail order businesses, and technology companies.
The advantage to customer service jobs is that they don’t necessarily require experience. That doesn’t mean that they don’t require skills or equipment. It also doesn’t mean you can simply sign up and answer phone calls. But you don’t need an advanced degree or years of corporate experience to get hired in customer service.
The hours in a customer service job can vary. Some will require full-time work during regular work hours. Most offer part-time hours and some need people to work late shifts and/or weekends. Many will allow a flexible schedule, but most will want its agents to have a set schedule.
The pay can vary as well. Some pay as little as $8 an hour while others pay more. If sales are involved, sometime employers will pay commissions and bonuses, as well as a set hourly fee. If you have experience in customer service work, you’re likely to get paid more. Some employers provide benefits, but most categorize employees as independent contractors. This has some advantages as an independent contractor is able to deduct work-related expenses such as a new phone headset, as well as portions of your home expenses for having a home office.
To get a customer service job, you’re going to need to meet some requirements:
- While some customer service jobs require previous experience, most simply require a pleasant voice and a calm temperament (customer service also means handling complaints).
- You’ll likely need a second phone line and/or high-speed internet access. Satellite may or may not be accepted. Dial-up is almost never considered.
- A headset for your phone is highly recommended.
- A quiet place to work. Customer service work may not be ideal if you have small children or noisy pets unless you can make arrangements for them.
- Some require on-site training while others can train you via phone and Internet.
- Quality application or resume is needed to set yourself apart from other applicants. You can do this by doing background research on the company and industry, and include the information you gather in your resume. If the company is a national flower delivery chain and you used to work in a floral shop, mention it in your application and use the same terms that flower people use.
Customer service jobs can be found on the major job search engines and many telecommuting job databases. But like any other work-at-home job, you need to do your due diligence to weed out the scams. Any company that asks you for money to get hired is a scam. The only exception is that some customer service companies will pass on the expense of a background check to the potential hire. However, they don’t usually ask for this unless you’ve made it through the initial screening and are being considered for hire.
Customer service work from home is expanding making it a great option for a home-based job. But before you start submitting your application, make sure you meet the requirements and have a quality resume that will get you the job.
Customer Service Jobs
Here are some places that are frequently taking applications for customer service jobs:
1800Flowers
Alpine Access
Arise
Call Center Options
Cloud10 Corporation
Convergys
Live Ops
West At Home
VIP Desk
Thanks for the great content and information on legitimate online businesses. I search the net looking for this type of content to give me ideas on future articles that I am going to write on this same general subject. Appreciate reading your article and information on this particular subject.
I am in Dubi.I am in small company and getting small salary.and having big family depending on me. I want to increase my income. If i can earn by doing job from home its great.please help me.
Thanks & regards
Vivekraj Shetty
Hello! Thank you for commenting. There are work-at-home jobs all over the world. The key is to conduct a work-at-home job search the same way you’d do a traditional job search. Start with your skills and experience and look for companies that need people to fill those needs and who are willing to let employees work virtually.
Thanks for posting this article. I would love to try on working at home as customer service, i do have a nice voice and calm temperament and a little experience. I hope to find one that’s for real and not scam.
There are lots of customer service jobs. Alpine Access has been doing a lot of hiring lately, but there are many others as well. Good luck.
I have sent this note twice – I hope you got it this time
Leslie:
This note is written out of not knowing what to do next as far as looking for a work at home job. For the past two years, I have looked very diligently on a consistent basis for work at home jobs and nothing has come up.
Both my sister and I need to make at a minimum $13 – $15 an hour part-time, 25 hours a week. Primarily, I look at your site, Flex jobs, Home Job Stop, The Homeworker, & Craig’s List. When I look at these sites (especially yours & Flex Jobs), the jobs pay under $13 – $15 per hour or they may pay that or even better, but they want the person to live in the area where the job is originating from.
My sister & I want to get a house together and work at home, but what has been found so far will in no way make a mortgage payment for the cost of an average house ($230,000) even if we split the payment between us. My sister wants to have her own tutoring business (at home), but it takes a while to build up a clientele for this kind of business (2-3 years). Therefore, she (as well as myself) needs a work at home job until her tutoring business starts taking off.
Both of us have average computer skills. My sister’s background is primarily in math (teaching). She has looked into online tutoring jobs, but practically all of these pay $10 or under, and you are only paid when you are actually helping a student (so this is not an option). My background is in education (former elementary teacher) and secretarial/clerical. Also, both of us have had small shopping center commercial management experience.
The types of jobs we’ve looked at are: (1) education (non-tutor type position –for example, you are evaluating state standards for educational materials. The pay is good for a job like this, but most of them last for only several months, nothing permanent. (2) Customer service – The pay is $10 or under and usually a person is only paid by “talk per minute” instead of per hour, and (3) virtual assistant – As I have already mentioned, the pay may be $13 – $15 per hour or above, but you have to reside in a certain area. I live in Dallas and rarely do I see a VA job with Dallas as the location. For the jobs we have applied, we have gotten no response/feedback.
Please advise and thank you for your time.
Sharon Head
Hi Sharon,
I’m sorry I missed your note. I’ve been getting a lot of spam lately and although I try to filter it out, sometimes I delete legit emails by accident.
Your note highlights the problems with finding work even traditional work. There are a couple of thoughts…first I’m not sure where you got the idea that it takes 2-3 years to get a tutoring business in the black. It takes as long as it takes for you to get clients. Have you run the numbers to know how many you’d need? I don’t know the current rate for tutoring, but I would imagine it’s more than $15 per hour. Let’s say its $25 an hour, to make $375 a week you’d need 15 regular students. Now seems like a great time to talk to guidance counselors, network with teachers, leave flyers where parents hang out etc and get students. Also have you checked out Connection Academy or other online schools?
You probably aren’t going to find customer service jobs for more than $12 per hour. To get paid more than $12 an hour as a virtual assistant, you’d need to start your own VA business. So your options are to take a lower paying job and work more hours or change your job search.
Finally, have you considered writing? At Demand Studios http://www.demandstudios.com you can get paid $15 per article which means you’d need to write 25 articles per week. There are a variety of topics to choose from. Love to Know is another option http://www.lovetoknow.com/.
Hi Everyone, I heard about Work from Home Customer Support, at the beginning I was thinking that how that was possible with out a proper support from the supervisor!! but now it is possible, the agent will have a support WBT and few supervisors online to provide support to the agents, and also few WBTs that will explain about the product training and the process related training. There will be a time tracker which records the working hours and the work done by the contractor instantly.. Thus making the global support possible working from Home.
Hi Samanth, Technology has made many things possible including customer support jobs as well as training for customer support jobs. However, some companies do require on-site training or an on-site probationary period. Thanks for posting.