Free Sample Cover Letter For Customer Service Jobs Warning!
Books and websites are full of free-for-the-taking tips and tricks for a kinder, gentler job search. There are free samples of virtually every kind of cover letter you can imagine – from teaching to taxidermy. Customer service, a wide and varied industry, is no exception to the rule. Advice on searching for a job in this field is every bit as diverse as the field itself. Just because the advice is free does not mean you should take it. A pre-formatted template cover letter will not provide the kind of information a hiring manager is seeking. When looking for a competent customer service professional hiring managers have a strong sense of what a business needs and are looking for a candidate to satisfy those needs. Your cover letter should convince the hiring manager that you are suited for and capable of the job.
All cover letters are on a mission – a mission to spark the reader’s desire to learn more about the applicant. The cover letter is the first thing a potential employer sees and hears about you. It should be a head-turner. Keeping the reader’s attention is necessary if you want them to make it as far as your resume. A good cover letter is just a hint of what is coming. Touch on achievements and experience without providing too much information. Indicate that more details are available in your resume, pressing the reader on to examine the finer points of your work history.
A bold headline that says something interesting about your customer service skills is a top-notch attention-grabber. Headlines like “CUSTOMERS ASK FOR ME BY NAME” or “5 GOOD REASONS WHY I SHOULD WORK FOR YOU” stand out from the boring, impersonal letters that hiring managers are accustomed to reading. If you want your cover letter to stand-up and get noticed right off the bat, cite specific examples to support that eye-catching headline. Let your personal customer service experiences speak for themselves.
Let the hiring manager know that you mean business. Use the first paragraph to establish how you heard about the opening and what you know about the company. Doing a little research on the company’s history and purpose builds credibility. Taking the time to learn about the challenges the company faces and the company’s goals for the future indicates a willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty. Customer service professionals must go out of their way on a regular basis. Proving beforehand, that you are willing to go the extra mile of your own volition, speaks volumes about your work ethic to a potential employer.
Written and verbal communication skills are an important part of any customer service position. Being able to understand the needs of the client or customer should be portrayed in your cover letter. Anticipating what the customer will want takes customer service to a whole new level. Use the content and construction of your cover letter to expound upon your ability to communicate effectively and thoroughly. Read the letter out loud to check for readability and comfortable flow. Consider letting a co-worker read over your letter. A different point of view may be the thing your customer service cover letter needs to be complete.
In the end, the customer service cover letter is an indispensable medium of expression. Allow the hiring manager to get to know a little about you as a person while they consider your prior experience and qualifications. Avoid just copying a sample of a free cover letter as a means to an end. Anything that easy cannot possibly hold up to the scrutiny of a manager that is looking for a first-class customer service professional. Spend the additional time to craft your own original thoughts and ideas about customer service into an appealing format. Make the reader believe that you are the one for the position with a combination of certifiable facts and passionate interest in providing quality service that keeps the customer and the company happy. Let your enthusiasm liven up what could be another submission bound for the not-interested pile of boring, run-of-the-mill applications. When the phone rings and the hiring manager asks you to come in for that interview you will be glad that you did.
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First of all, Harper Collins and all major publishers will reject you unread. They do not accept unsolicited queries. You should know that if you have read their listing in Writers Market. They only deal with agents.
I would never submit to more than two publishers at a time. Sending to five is just unprofessional and amateur and all five will just reject you. You should just say I have simultaneously submitted this query to another publisher.
You mention sending a cover letter with your manuscript. That is absolutely NOT how it is done. Your manuscript will become lunch for somebody’s papershredder. You must check each publisher’s submission requirements and send them EXACTLY what they request. That doenst mean a manuscript. Usually it means a query letter along with a summary. Sending a manuscript is a sure sign of an unprofessional amateur author and a guaranteed form rejection letter.
You say you have a bunch of books, but it doesnt seem like you have read them. Do you have a copy of Writers Market? That is really the only book you need. All the information you require is right there. Not following guidelines will get you rejected. So will sending your letter on cutsey stationary, including “presents” and using cute stamps on the envelope. Your letter should be professional – on matching stationary with simple flag stamps. Trust me, people get rejected just for their choice of stamps on the envelope.
The only publishers you can query are small publishers who deal directly with authors. The A List publishers dont. DEFINITELY cross Harper Collins off your list.
I had a chance recently to sit down and talk with an exec at Harper Collins. We discussed the children’s market. 40% of all childrens’ books today are written by celebs – Madonna, Jamie Lee Curtis, Billy Joel etc. Another 40% is already established children’s authors – Eric Carle etc. 15-20% is reprints of children’s classics – Curious George, Dr Seuss, etc. That leaves approximately 5% for new authors. Publishers like Harper Collins have large backlogs of previously purchased children’s books that are getting printed a few at a time. And to make matters worse, adult fiction authors like Carl Hiaasen and several others are now entering the children’s market too — eating into that 5% of new authors. That is why you have been burned by agents. Most agents dont read children’s anymore – there just isnt any profit in it for them. They cannot sell the books and it’s a waste of their time.
Your only hope is to go to Writers Market and look through the small presses for ones still publishing children’s books. And trust me – there are not many. There are a lot of frauds and scams among smaller presses so make sure you go through Preditors and Editors and Absolute Write Water Cooler Bewares and Background Checks and research any company you intend to query. If there have been problems in the past, both sites will have details.
As for your bio, if you are an unpublished inexperienced author, you should say so. Dont artifically pump up your bio – it will be discovered. Ask James ‘Frey.
I do not mean to be so negative, but these are the facts in the children’s book world. It is tough – very tough. .I have a close friend who recently published a children’s book that went all the way to #1 on the NY Times children’s list. But it was an exceptional book, on an exceptional subject and he had some very important people backing him – namely the NY Yankees. If the book isnt exceptional, it wont go anywhere. And if it is a holiday book, Christmas, Chaunakah, Halloween etc – forget it – they get thousands a week and reject them all. The market is glutted.
Reread Writers Market. You need to review how to send in a submission before you do it. Good luck. Pax – C
What do I put on my cover letter for a manuscript submission?
This is my first time writing a children’s book. I intend to send it to a publisher. I have found a publisher that is accepting unsolicited manuscripts but they require a cover letter. I have no idea what or how to write one of these. I don’t have any prior experience, so that even makes it more difficult to write this cover letter. Any help or samples would be great! Thanks for the help.
This is what they require: A cover letter introducing myself and experience, a summary of the story, and three chapters.
Also, the submission has to be made via email and I have searched on there website and I don’t see the editors name. Is including their name a must on cover letters?
I need help understanding publishing terms?
I wrote a childerns picture. I know i well get rejections. I want to be rejected because of content not because i wrote up the cover letter wrong.I have a bunch of books on how to get it published. my problem is how to write up some of the terms.. and what it means. I am going straight to the publisher first.i tried the agent path and got burned a few times. some require a cover letter with your manuscript.
1) how do i write up simultaneous submissions of a cover letter. they ask for you to include that you have done it. ( i have not been able to find a sample letter to see.) which of the following is correct.
A) I have submitted my book to many other publishers
B) I have submitted my book to 5 other Publishers
C) i have submitted my book to the following Publishers: Harper Collins, Walden Books, Greenbrook Publishing and Tenspeed Publishing.
2) What is Biographical material ? ( i am thinking it is a basic Bio about me). Any tips on how to write it would help.
the publishers i used where just exsamples…some publishers incourage you to submitt to more then one publisher but would like you to mention it in your cover letter with your manuscirpt or qurrie letter ( each publisher wants it different).. and for following guidelines i have.. i have gone to some web sites and what they want for childern picture books.certain amount of words, cover letters or qurrie letters.. that is why i have a few questions about it..and some big publishers according to there web sites still want unagented submissions..there where a few things they wanted done a certain way and that is why i am asking….the 2 above questions……
the few agents i have dealt with where just crook.. they wanted me to pay and some of the contracts made my lawyer fall over laughing.. that is why i am tring to do it without an agent…if it dont workout then all i lost was a few months and a couple of hundred dollars…the book is not about holidays or cute bunnys.
Sorry that I can’t be of much help, BUT, I’ve seen some publishers/literary agencies refer to the query letter as the cover letter. So, they might mean query letter. I guess it won’t hurt to email them and ask for clarification.
See if anyone at http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums has any experience submitting to or working with this publisher and they can tell you what you need on the cover letter.
ADDED: It sounds like they want a query letter. Queries usually follow this format (3 short paragraphs of what your story is about and 1 small paragraphs about your story’s stats and yourself; one page total). It’s best to get feeback for your query, and you can do so at the forum I liked. Queries can be harder than writing the novel itself, because you can easily find other things to focus on rather than what your novel is about. A good, efficient query, according to one literary agent whose blog I visit, is about 350-400 words. You need to also make sure within your query that you focus on what’s unique about your novel (how it’s different than every other novel in the genre). If you make your novel sound like a run-of-the-mill romance, fantasy, or what have you, then you can be rejected. You can find examples of successful query letters on AbsoluteWrite and you can get help with writing yours. Query letter can make or break you with a publisher or agent, so make sure it’s a perfect as it can be. Don’t worry about not having experience. Unless the publisher explicitly states that they want people with publishing experience then in the paragraph were you talk about yourself, just say something like “[title of novel] is a 40,000-word YA sci-fi novel and is the debut novel by [your name].” That’s not perfect of course, but you get the gist of it. The word Debut will let them know that it’s your first novel and that you don’t have any publishing experience.