Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between customer service specialists 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 specialist and an associate customer service representative. Additionally, an associate customer service representative has an average salary of $35,215, which is higher than the $33,238 average annual salary of a customer service specialist.
The top three skills for a customer service specialist include customer service, strong customer service and cleanliness. The most important skills for an associate customer service representative are patients, outbound calls, and customer inquiries.
| Customer Service Specialist | Associate Customer Service Representative | |
| Yearly salary | $33,238 | $35,215 |
| Hourly rate | $15.98 | $16.93 |
| Growth rate | -4% | -4% |
| Number of jobs | 223,323 | 199,751 |
| Job satisfaction | 4 | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 43% | Bachelor's Degree, 35% |
| Average age | 40 | 40 |
| Years of experience | 12 | 12 |
Customer service specialists are employees who are responsible for providing the best customer experience to customers, usually for after-sales transactions. They attend to customers' inquiries and provide answers to their questions on products or services that the company offers. They also address customer complaints and help mitigate the concerns by offering solutions such as instructions on how to fix defects, or processing replacements or refunds. Customer service specialists also listen to customer feedback and ensure that these are logged properly so that proper departments will be able to receive them.
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 specialists and associate customer service representatives have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Customer Service Specialist | Associate Customer Service Representative | |
| Average salary | $33,238 | $35,215 |
| Salary range | Between $26,000 And $42,000 | Between $26,000 And $46,000 |
| Highest paying City | Boston, MA | Washington, DC |
| Highest paying state | Massachusetts | Massachusetts |
| Best paying company | Dell | Deutsche Bank |
| Best paying industry | Finance | Finance |
There are a few differences between a customer service specialist and an associate customer service representative in terms of educational background:
| Customer Service Specialist | Associate Customer Service Representative | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 43% | Bachelor's Degree, 35% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | - | - |
Here are the differences between customer service specialists' and associate customer service representatives' demographics:
| Customer Service Specialist | Associate Customer Service Representative | |
| Average age | 40 | 40 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 32.0% Female, 68.0% | Male, 35.1% Female, 64.9% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 11.6% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 20.0% Asian, 6.8% White, 55.6% 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% |