What does a customer associate do?
A customer associate is responsible for providing the best customer service by assisting the customers with their inquiries and concerns, as well as resolving their complaints, processing replacements, and issuing refunds as needed. Customer associates also sell products and services to the customers, demonstrating product features, and identifying business opportunities to drive more revenues and profits for the business. They must have excellent communication and organizational skills to process orders and payments timely and accurately.
Customer associate responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real customer associate resumes:
- Manage product queries, process orders and deliveries of medical devices to NHS and private hospitals in UK.
- Collaborate with management to train new employees on company policies and procedures and manage customer concerns via LiveChat.
- Provide troubleshooting steps to service apple products.
- Answer phones, operate POS and collect payments of cash, credit/debit cards and checks.
- Job duties include not only calls, but faxing, copying, outlook, multitasking.
- Require to have above average language skills, phone, negotiating, collaboration, persuasion, innovation.
- Used Microsoft PowerPoint for company presentations
- Exercise multitasking abilities in a fast pace work environment.
- Handle incoming calls from patients to process payment arrangements; update insurance information answer general questions pertaining to billing and insurance.
- Provide technical support for residential DSL, voice, and IPTV customers calling into TDS's call center.
- Work directly with insurance companies, financial assistance, Medicare and Medicaid to receive benefits and authorization for home medical equipment.
- Educate and engage customers for using branch technology effectively including ATM and online support improving their banking experience.
- Determine Medicaid requirements and eligibility.
Customer associate skills and personality traits
We calculated that 24% of Customer Associates are proficient in Sales Floor, Product Knowledge, and Customer Service. They’re also known for soft skills such as Communication skills, Computer skills, and Customer-service skills.
We break down the percentage of Customer Associates that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Sales Floor, 24%
Process paperwork for broken merchandise, unload truck, bring merchandise to sales floor, process customer orders and pick ups.
- Product Knowledge, 22%
Interact with diverse customers requiring good communication and strong product knowledge
- Customer Service, 13%
Provided a high level of customer service under difficult circumstances and helped diffuse customer dissatisfaction to result in a positive outcome.
- Phone Calls, 7%
Received incoming telephone calls from customers, answered and resolved questions regarding accounts; up-selling and account retention whenever appropriate.
- Customer Calls, 3%
Follow up on customer calls not immediately resolved
- Outbound Calls, 3%
Maintained and exceeded client and customer expectations through professional telephone interaction on inbound and outbound calls.
Common skills that a customer associate uses to do their job include "sales floor," "product knowledge," and "customer service." You can find details on the most important customer associate responsibilities below.
Communication skills. The most essential soft skill for a customer associate to carry out their responsibilities is communication skills. This skill is important for the role because "customer service representatives must be able to provide clear information in writing, by phone, or in person." Additionally, a customer associate resume shows how their duties depend on communication skills: "resolved customer complaints and maintained satisfaction by effective listening and thorough review of clients file to identify miscommunication. "
Customer-service skills. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of customer associates is customer-service skills. This skill is critical to many everyday customer associate duties, as "representatives help companies retain customers by professionally answering questions and helping to resolve complaints." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "major responsibility: provide customer support solutions to american express customers"
Interpersonal skills. For certain customer associate responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "interpersonal skills." The day-to-day duties of a customer associate rely on this skill, as "representatives should be able to create positive interactions with customers." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what customer associates do: "focused on in-depth interpersonal training with emphasis on customer satisfaction and soft skills. "
Listening skills. Another crucial skill for a customer associate to carry out their responsibilities is "listening skills." A big part of what customer associates relies on this skill, since "representatives must listen carefully to ensure that they understand customers in order to assist them." How this skill relates to customer associate duties can be seen in an example from a customer associate resume snippet: "provided customer support through exceptional written, verbal, and listening skills. "
Patience. Another skill commonly found on customer associate job descriptions is "patience." It can come up quite often in customer associate duties, since "representatives should be patient and polite, especially when interacting with dissatisfied customers." Here's an example from a resume of how this skill fits into day-to-day customer associate responsibilities: "handle customer issues with patience and sensitivity. "
The three companies that hire the most customer associates are:
- Walgreens2,696 customer associates jobs
- URBN146 customer associates jobs
- Wolters Kluwer23 customer associates jobs
Choose from 10+ customizable customer associate resume templates
Build a professional customer associate resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your customer associate resume.
Compare different customer associates
Customer associate vs. Sales associate and customer service
Sales and customer service associates are employees who are responsible for closing out sales deals and attending to customer needs. They are in charge of selling company goods and services to potential clients, often citing the common needs of prospective clients to ensure sales. They also handle customer inquiries and complaints and try their best to mitigate any problems that would arise. They are expected to be experts on company products to ensure that they can provide the best service to customers. Sales and customer service associates should have strong interpersonal skills, customer service skills, and communication skills.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, customer associate responsibilities require skills like "powerpoint," "troubleshoot," "customer retention," and "customer care." Meanwhile a typical sales associate and customer service has skills in areas such as "plumbing," "sales associates," "booking," and "math." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Sales associate and customer services really shine in the manufacturing industry with an average salary of $30,394. Comparatively, customer associates tend to make the most money in the telecommunication industry with an average salary of $33,698.On average, sales associate and customer services reach similar levels of education than customer associates. Sales associate and customer services are 0.5% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 0.1% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Customer associate vs. Associate customer service representative
An associate customer service representative is responsible for providing high customer service by assisting customers on their inquiries and concerns, as well as resolving and escalating high-level complaints to the supervisor or tenured customer service representative. Associate customer service representatives also process orders and payments from the customers, replacing defective items, and issuing refunds as needed. They must have excellent communication and organizational skills, especially on handling data processing procedures to the database for reference to customer concerns.
While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that customer associate responsibilities requires skills like "phone calls," "stock merchandise," "customer retention," and "customer relations." But an associate customer service representative might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "patients," "computer system," "medicare," and "process payments."
Associate customer service representatives may earn a higher salary than customer associates, but associate customer service representatives earn the most pay in the finance industry with an average salary of $37,473. On the other hand, customer associates receive higher pay in the telecommunication industry, where they earn an average salary of $33,698.associate customer service representatives earn similar levels of education than customer associates in general. They're 0.0% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.1% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Customer associate vs. Customer relations representative
A customer relations representative is responsible for providing the highest customer service by interacting with customers to respond to their inquiries and concerns, process their requests, and resolve their complaints. Customer relations representatives assist the customers with their needs by offering products and services according to their requirements and budget limitations. They may also sell newly launched products to the customers, discuss features and usability, and generate payments and delivery details. A customer relations representative must have excellent communication and organizational skills to maintain healthy business relationships with the customers to achieve the company's long-term goals and objectives.
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a customer associate is likely to be skilled in "sales floor," "stock merchandise," "troubleshoot," and "customer care," while a typical customer relations representative is skilled in "team-oriented environment," "propane," "schedule appointments," and "work ethic."
Customer relations representatives earn the highest salary when working in the finance industry, where they receive an average salary of $42,057. Comparatively, customer associates have the highest earning potential in the telecommunication industry, with an average salary of $33,698.When it comes to education, customer relations representatives tend to earn similar degree levels compared to customer associates. In fact, they're 1.0% more likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.1% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Customer associate vs. Customer support representative
A customer support representative is responsible for answering calls and correspondence, providing customer assistance in various technical issues, concerns, or difficulties. There are also instances when they must make calls to follow-up on the issues, or even sell products and services. Most of the time, a customer support representative has a certain quota to reach and works under a manager's supervision. Furthermore, it is essential to keep accurate records and report to managers or supervisors should there be any problems.
Even though a few skill sets overlap between customer associates and customer support representatives, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a customer associate might have more use for skills like "sales floor," "customer service," "phone calls," and "stock merchandise." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of customer support representatives require skills like "technical support," "windows," "data entry," and "work ethic. "
Customer support representatives enjoy the best pay in the finance industry, with an average salary of $38,928. For comparison, customer associates earn the highest salary in the telecommunication industry.The average resume of customer support representatives showed that they earn similar levels of education compared to customer associates. So much so that theyacirc;euro;trade;re 1.0% more likely to earn a Master's Degree and less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree by 0.1%.Types of customer associate
Updated January 8, 2025
