“It's kind of a customer service job.”

English Lesson: It's kind of a customer service job.

You're at a party. Another guest at the party asks what you do. You tell her your job title, but she doesn't seem to understand. You explain your job more simply.

It's kind of a customer service job.

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(a company's) customer service

"Customer service" is the name for the group of employees in a company who answer customers' questions, listen to their complaints, and help them out with problems. In large companies, it's a separate group with a special telephone number that you call if you need help.

Here are some situations in which you might call customer service:

  • You got a telephone bill and the charges were a lot higher than usual. You don't think you should have to pay that much.
  • You want to cancel your subscription to a magazine.
  • You ordered a book on the Internet two weeks ago and it hasn't arrived yet. You want to know why it hasn't come.
  • Your TV isn't receiving any cable TV signal, so you can't watch TV.

"Customer service" also means whatever actions a company's Customer Service group does for you. So you can talk about customer service as a group of people, or as a thing:

Customer service is always super helpful whenever I call.

They didn't even offer to replace it? That's not very good customer service, is it?

kind of a (something)

"Kind of" means "a little" or "somewhat". It can be followed by an adjective or a verb:

I feel kind of obligated to go.

I kind of wanted to go with them.

If you want to use a noun after "kind of", say "kind of a ___":

My house is kind of a mess.

I've always been kind of a nerd.