What Does a Technical Service Representative Do?

A technical service representative is responsible for providing technical support to customers over the phone, through email, or in person. Support can be offered for hardware, software, or any type of mechanical device. Generally, a technical service representative is employed by a technical support company that provides assistance to the customers of a third party company. The technical service representative may also be responsible for providing technical support for internal employees as well as outside clients.

Although the industries in which they work may vary, most technical service representatives support customers who are having computer or software issues. When a customer contacts the technical support department of a company, the technical service representative will analyze the problems that the customer is facing and attempt to troubleshoot the issue over the phone or via email. In certain difficult cases it may be necessary for a field representative to meet a customer in person in order to resolve the problem. This is a standard practice with in-home services revolving around cable television or hi-speed Internet.

Technical service representatives must have great interpersonal skills as they will be working directly with frustrated customers. Representatives must also be proficient in a wide variety of technologies and products in order to effectively resolve the issues that a customer may be experiencing with his or her product. In addition to troubleshooting technical issues, representatives are also responsible for ordering replacement parts and scheduling in-home support services when needed. When a technical issue can not be resolved, it is the duty of the technical service representative to attempt to maintain a positive relationship with the customer by appeasing the customer in another manner. This could be accomplished by offering a free service or product, or by replacing the existing product that the customer is currently using.

Although there are no specific educational requirements in order to become a technical service representative, many have bachelor's degrees in information technology or communications. Having a degree or experience in a technical field can actually be beneficial to representatives who are responsible for providing technical support services for extremely complex software solutions. Some companies actually have multiple levels of technical service representatives depending upon the complexity of the problem. In this situation a person who is a level 1 representative would receive basic technical problems, while level 3 representatives would receive the more difficult technical support calls.