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The differences between customer success managers and customer service representatives can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 6-8 years to become a customer success manager, becoming a customer service representative takes usually requires 6-12 months. Additionally, a customer success manager has an average salary of $93,820, which is higher than the $32,260 average annual salary of a customer service representative.
The top three skills for a customer success manager include client facing, cloud and account management. The most important skills for a customer service representative are cleanliness, POS, and data entry.
| Customer Success Manager | Customer Service Representative | |
| Yearly salary | $93,820 | $32,260 |
| Hourly rate | $45.11 | $15.51 |
| Growth rate | 5% | -4% |
| Number of jobs | 95,053 | 209,515 |
| Job satisfaction | - | 4 |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 78% | High School Diploma, 33% |
| Average age | 46 | 40 |
| Years of experience | 8 | 12 |
A customer success manager works to understand repeat customers and prioritize their long-term needs. Primarily, they manage the customer relationship and give them prompt value propositions. They act as mentors to customers by educating them about the sales process and ensure efficient transaction processing. Their tasks include advocating for the company, onboarding customers to the products, follow-up on renewals, and encouraging cross-sells and upsells. Additionally, they build relationships with the customer and the support team as well as advocating customers' needs.
Customer service representatives are the first point of contact of the customers, acting as the frontiers of the company and help in driving customer loyalty and retention by leaving a great impression and resolving all of their concerns. They accommodate customer queries by providing useful and comprehensive information about any products or services. Some would use that as an opportunity to market and promote more sales. The most challenging issues they use to handle are customer complaints and processing of refunds and returns. They also assist in basic troubleshooting or accounts and payment setup with the use of specific guidelines or step by step procedures. At most, they help and solve customer issues on their own, but sometimes they would need support from supervisors or other departments.
Customer success managers and customer service representatives have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Customer Success Manager | Customer Service Representative | |
| Average salary | $93,820 | $32,260 |
| Salary range | Between $61,000 And $142,000 | Between $25,000 And $41,000 |
| Highest paying City | Redwood City, CA | Des Moines, WA |
| Highest paying state | California | Washington |
| Best paying company | VMware | Oracle |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Insurance |
There are a few differences between a customer success manager and a customer service representative in terms of educational background:
| Customer Success Manager | Customer Service Representative | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 78% | High School Diploma, 33% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | University of Pennsylvania | - |
Here are the differences between customer success managers' and customer service representatives' demographics:
| Customer Success Manager | Customer Service Representative | |
| Average age | 46 | 40 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 54.9% Female, 45.1% | Male, 30.5% Female, 69.5% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 3.2% Unknown, 4.4% Hispanic or Latino, 9.8% Asian, 4.1% White, 78.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% | Black or African American, 11.6% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 21.2% Asian, 6.3% White, 55.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7% |
| LGBT Percentage | 7% | 7% |