There are many ways to explore careers in customer service, including joining finance and investing clubs in high school and college, reading books such as Mutual Funds For Dummies (For Dummies, 2016), joining the speech team to improve your communication skills, and getting a job as a retail clerk to obtain customer service experience. Finally, talk with mutual fund CSRs about their jobs. Ask the following questions:

• How did you break into the field?
• What’s the best educational background for this career?
• What skills are most important for CSRs? 
• How will the mutual fund industry change in the next five to 10 years, and what can I do in college to prepare for these changes?

Customer service is important in any business, but it is even more important in the investment industry because customers are trusting their hard-earned money to mutual fund companies. If new or current investors receive poor customer service, it sends a message, warranted or not, that the company cannot be trusted to manage the investor’s money. And in the competitive mutual fund industry, poor customer service can translate into lost customers and investment revenue.

Major duties of customer service representatives include:

• providing information on balance amounts, financial products, plan options, enrollments, fund conversions, performance history, and other topics via telephone, e-mail, or postal mail to fund shareholders and potential customers
• supporting shareholder requests by performing transactions such as exchanges, redemptions, and maintenance requests
• providing information on new mutual funds to existing or potential customers
• reviewing new account documentation and establishing accounts
• maintaining an investor management database to track communications with investors
• following up with current investors to ensure that they have the right financial products for their current goals
• evaluating, verifying, and processing service requests from third-party entities, institutions, and broker/dealer operations
• collecting payments from customers or arranging for billing
• maintaining updated knowledge of fund products and industry trends
• performing quality control for transaction processing to ensure compliance with regulatory and department quality standards
• performing corrective processing and monitoring of dividend adjustments