Customer service representatives are professionals who help new or prospective customers solve problems or answer questions related to a product or service.
(By the way, this article is one piece of a multi-part series titled, “How to Leverage Your Career Experience to Get Started in Business Analysis” where we explore the specific transferable skills professionals in various career backgrounds bring to business analysis and what opportunities they have to grow their business analysis experience.)
Customer service professionals tend to be excellent communicators and relationship builders, and this prepares them to handle the more challenging aspects of discovering requirements and negotiating what’s in and out of scope inside a project. They also probably have a lot of experience solving problems and coming up with creative solutions.
Experienced and senior-level customer service professionals also develop a deep experience in a specific industry or tool set, which can prepare them to take on a variety of specialist roles within business analysis.
To grow into a business analyst role, customer service professionals need to explore the following types of opportunities:
- Get involved in project work as a subject matter expert so they can see how projects flow, and volunteer to take on business analysis tasks.
- Look for more expansive and long-term, big-picture solutions to problems reported by customers, instead of work-arounds that meet short-term, urgent needs.
- Hone written communication skills by documenting meeting notes and practicing requirements documentation.
In general, as a customer service professional you need to look beyond the day-to-day and hour-to-hour issues and take steps towards bigger picture solutions to long-term problems.
To further explore how the transition from customer service to business analysis works, check out these career transition success stories:
- From Desktop Support Technician to Business Analyst: A Journey-In-Progress – Rob shares how he started thinking and acting forward towards his business analysis career goals while working in desktop support.
- From Operations Support Analyst to Business Analyst – Natalya shares how important gaining confidence in her transferable skills was in her career transition.
- From Call Center Representative to Business Analyst – Mina shares how she built BA experience while working in a call center.
- From Customer Service to Business Analysis – YLS shares how her process-orientation helped her take on a BA role before she ever had the BA job title.
- From Sales Support to Quality Assurance to Business Analysis – Martin shares how pursuing a transitional role can help you move into a business analyst career.
If you are interested in learning more, click here to receive our free step-by-step career planning course and map out your transition into business analysis.
