What does a customer sales associate do?

A customer sales associate specializes in handling and communicating with customers to secure sales in a retail store. Their primary responsibilities revolve around greeting clients, responding to inquiries, providing assistance, and even offering suggestions when necessary. Aside from ensuring customer satisfaction, it is also their responsibility to maintain the cleanliness and order on the sales floor by re-stocking shelves and arranging them to look presentable. Furthermore, a customer sales associate must coordinate with other sales floor members and report to a manager or supervisor.
Customer sales associate responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real customer sales associate resumes:
- Manage cash balances and inventory stock accurately; ensure cleanliness of all work stations and guarantee excellent customer service.
- Process merchandise information through store computer system, POS register system, and complete all require paperwork according to policy.
- Used mobile POS systems to streamline the customer experience in order to drive full engagement throughout entire interaction with customer.
- Provide above average service to customers by bagging groceries appropriately and assist with carryout and loading merchandise into customer's vehicle.
- Recognize opportunities to up-sell and often take the opportunity to do so to create a better Marriott experience and event.
Customer sales associate skills and personality traits
We calculated that 12% of Customer Sales Associates are proficient in Sales Floor, Customer Satisfaction, and Customer Service. They’re also known for soft skills such as Communication skills, Computer skills, and Listening skills.
We break down the percentage of Customer Sales Associates that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Sales Floor, 12%
Performed general retail responsibilities including framing, customer service, cash register and sales floor recovery.
- Customer Satisfaction, 9%
Provide customer satisfaction by creating a positive shopping experience and ensuring customers are greeted and provided assistance as needed.
- Customer Service, 9%
Identified sale opportunities using my highly refined listening skills with a focus on relationship building while providing superior customer service.
- Product Knowledge, 8%
Increased inquiry-to-order capture rate, utilizing in-depth product knowledge to provide superior service and quickly and professionally answer various customer inquiries.
- Outbound Calls, 8%
Placed outbound calls to customer in order to provide information regarding pharmaceutical orders.
- Customer Sales, 8%
Oversee dealership operations including customer sales, financing and loan preparation, marketing, customer service and ongoing customer relationship management.
"sales floor," "customer satisfaction," and "customer service" are among the most common skills that customer sales associates use at work. You can find even more customer sales associate responsibilities below, including:
Communication skills. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for a customer sales associate to have is communication skills. Their role and responsibilities require that "customer service representatives must be able to provide clear information in writing, by phone, or in person." Customer sales associates often use communication skills in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "developed excellent communication, interpersonal, and customer service skills"
Listening skills. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of customer sales associates is listening skills. This skill is critical to many everyday customer sales associate duties, as "representatives must listen carefully to ensure that they understand customers in order to assist them." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "listen to customer concerns and communicated product knowledge. "
Patience. A big part of what customer sales associates do relies on "patience." You can see how essential it is to customer sales associate responsibilities because "representatives should be patient and polite, especially when interacting with dissatisfied customers." Here's an example of how this skill is used from a resume that represents typical customer sales associate tasks: "work with patience and courtesy during all customer interactions. "
Problem-solving skills. Another common skill required for customer sales associate responsibilities is "problem-solving skills." This skill comes up in the duties of customer sales associates all the time, as "representatives must determine solutions to customers’ problems." An excerpt from a real customer sales associate resume shows how this skill is central to what a customer sales associate does: "offered creative solutions and ideas based on market conditions, feedback from clients and product knowledge. "
Customer-service skills. Another skill commonly found on customer sales associate job descriptions is "customer-service skills." It can come up quite often in customer sales associate duties, since "representatives help companies retain customers by professionally answering questions and helping to resolve complaints." Here's an example from a resume of how this skill fits into day-to-day customer sales associate responsibilities: "awarded a few neiman marcus reward as well from store manager for loss prevention accomplishments and top-notch customer service. "
The three companies that hire the most customer sales associates are:
- Rent-A-Center40 customer sales associates jobs
- DISH Network32 customer sales associates jobs
- Blick Art Materials27 customer sales associates jobs
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Customer sales associate vs. Associate sales representative
The duties of an associate sales representative depend on one's line of work or industry of employment. Their responsibilities typically revolve around reaching out to clients through calls or door-to-door visits, offering products and services, collecting payments, addressing issues and concerns, and performing corrective measures when necessary. An associate sales representative often has a quota and deadline to reach; therefore, it is essential to be sales driven and goal-oriented. Furthermore, one must adhere to the policies and regulations of the company.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, customer sales associate responsibilities require skills like "customer sales," "pricing strategy," "sales events," and "customer support." Meanwhile a typical associate sales representative has skills in areas such as "work ethic," "patients," "excellent interpersonal," and "excellent organizational." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Associate sales representatives tend to make the most money working in the health care industry, where they earn an average salary of $56,246. In contrast, customer sales associates make the biggest average salary, $35,271, in the real estate industry.On average, associate sales representatives reach similar levels of education than customer sales associates. Associate sales representatives are 2.3% more likely to earn a Master's Degree and 0.4% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Customer sales 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.
Each career also uses different skills, according to real customer sales associate resumes. While customer sales associate responsibilities can utilize skills like "customer sales," "loss prevention," "pricing strategy," and "sales events," associate customer service representatives use skills like "patients," "customer calls," "telephone calls," and "medicare."
On average, associate customer service representatives earn a lower salary than customer sales associates. Some industries support higher salaries in each profession. Interestingly enough, associate customer service representatives earn the most pay in the finance industry with an average salary of $37,473. Whereas customer sales associates have higher pay in the real estate industry, with an average salary of $35,271.associate customer service representatives earn similar levels of education than customer sales associates in general. They're 0.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.4% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for customer sales associates in the next 3-5 years?
Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, Writing Program Lead, York College of Pennsylvania
Customer sales 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.
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, customer sales associates are more likely to have skills like "customer sales," "customer transactions," "pricing strategy," and "sales events." But a sales associate and customer service is more likely to have skills like "plumbing," "phone calls," "booking," and "math."
Sales associate and customer services earn the best pay in the manufacturing industry, where they command an average salary of $30,394. Customer sales associates earn the highest pay from the real estate industry, with an average salary of $35,271.When it comes to education, sales associate and customer services tend to earn similar degree levels compared to customer sales associates. In fact, they're 0.7% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.2% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Customer sales associate vs. Retail sales associate/cashier
A cashier is responsible for ensuring all the products and goods sold are well recorded and paid for as well as answering customer inquiries and recommending products. They also help the other sales team when needed and process payment for all goods bought. Their duties and responsibilities include processing payments, ensuring all goods bought are accurately scanned and recorded, and bagging purchases.
Even though a few skill sets overlap between customer sales associates and retail sales associate/cashiers, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a customer sales associate might have more use for skills like "customer satisfaction," "outbound calls," "inbound calls," and "customer orders." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of retail sales associate/cashiers require skills like "basic math," "math," "cash handling," and "credit card payments. "
The retail industry tends to pay the highest salaries for retail sales associate/cashiers, with average annual pay of $27,103. Comparatively, the highest customer sales associate annual salary comes from the real estate industry.In general, retail sales associate/cashiers hold similar degree levels compared to customer sales associates. Retail sales associate/cashiers are 1.2% less likely to earn their Master's Degree and 0.3% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Types of customer sales associate
Updated January 8, 2025











