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The differences between customer service professionals and associate customer service representatives can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 6-12 months to become both a customer service professional and an associate customer service representative. Additionally, a customer service professional has an average salary of $46,620, which is higher than the $35,215 average annual salary of an associate customer service representative.
The top three skills for a customer service professional include customer service, inbound calls and strong customer service. The most important skills for an associate customer service representative are patients, outbound calls, and customer inquiries.
| Customer Service Professional | Associate Customer Service Representative | |
| Yearly salary | $46,620 | $35,215 |
| Hourly rate | $22.41 | $16.93 |
| Growth rate | -4% | -4% |
| Number of jobs | 251,374 | 199,751 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 41% | Bachelor's Degree, 35% |
| Average age | 40 | 40 |
| Years of experience | 12 | 12 |
A customer service professional is responsible for providing the highest customer service by responding to the customers' inquiries and concerns, resolving complaints, and updating the customers of goods and services for generating revenues and profitability to the company. Customer service professionals process order transactions, administering payment plans and adjusting service features in meeting customers' needs. A customer service professional should be highly communicative, as well as have excellent time-management skills in documenting customers' information on various software tools to maximize productivity and efficiency.
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.
Customer service professionals and associate customer service representatives have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Customer Service Professional | Associate Customer Service Representative | |
| Average salary | $46,620 | $35,215 |
| Salary range | Between $25,000 And $85,000 | Between $26,000 And $46,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | Washington, DC |
| Highest paying state | California | Massachusetts |
| Best paying company | Amazon | Deutsche Bank |
| Best paying industry | - | Finance |
There are a few differences between a customer service professional and an associate customer service representative in terms of educational background:
| Customer Service Professional | Associate Customer Service Representative | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 41% | Bachelor's Degree, 35% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | - | - |
Here are the differences between customer service professionals' and associate customer service representatives' demographics:
| Customer Service Professional | Associate Customer Service Representative | |
| Average age | 40 | 40 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 29.1% Female, 70.9% | Male, 35.1% Female, 64.9% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 12.3% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 18.5% Asian, 6.5% White, 56.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7% | Black or African American, 12.2% Unknown, 5.5% Hispanic or Latino, 21.0% Asian, 6.4% White, 54.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.8% |
| LGBT Percentage | 7% | 7% |