Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between sales support representatives and customer sales representatives can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 2-4 years to become a sales support representative, becoming a customer sales representative takes usually requires 6-12 months. Additionally, a customer sales representative has an average salary of $38,744, which is higher than the $38,310 average annual salary of a sales support representative.
The top three skills for a sales support representative include sales support, phone calls and POS. The most important skills for a customer sales representative are customer service, product knowledge, and customer sales.
| Sales Support Representative | Customer Sales Representative | |
| Yearly salary | $38,310 | $38,744 |
| Hourly rate | $18.42 | $18.63 |
| Growth rate | 4% | -4% |
| Number of jobs | 319,292 | 303,801 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 55% | Bachelor's Degree, 37% |
| Average age | 47 | 40 |
| Years of experience | 4 | 12 |
A sales support representative is responsible for assisting the complex operations of sales departments, performing administrative duties under the supervision of a direct manager. Sales support representatives' tasks include acknowledging and encoding customers' orders in the system, processing payments, responding to the customers' inquiries and concerns about the products, writing sales reports, and updating the customer of the shipment details. They also support the sales representatives on selling goods and services to potential customers by creating marketing materials and communicating with customers over the phone and e-mail to generate revenues and increase profits.
The primary role of customer service representatives is to help customers with questions and complaints. It is also their duties and responsibilities to provide customers with information about services and products, take and process orders, and process returns and modifications. They also store records of customer transactions and interactions and provide feedback on customer service efficacy. Customer service representatives must also ensure that they can give customer satisfaction and offer the best professional support.
Sales support representatives and customer sales representatives have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Sales Support Representative | Customer Sales Representative | |
| Average salary | $38,310 | $38,744 |
| Salary range | Between $30,000 And $48,000 | Between $27,000 And $54,000 |
| Highest paying City | Seattle, WA | Santa Rosa, CA |
| Highest paying state | Washington | Hawaii |
| Best paying company | NetApp | Merck |
| Best paying industry | Finance | Finance |
There are a few differences between a sales support representative and a customer sales representative in terms of educational background:
| Sales Support Representative | Customer Sales Representative | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 55% | Bachelor's Degree, 37% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | SUNY College of Technology at Alfred | - |
Here are the differences between sales support representatives' and customer sales representatives' demographics:
| Sales Support Representative | Customer Sales Representative | |
| Average age | 47 | 40 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 39.9% Female, 60.1% | Male, 44.9% Female, 55.1% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 3.8% Unknown, 3.7% Hispanic or Latino, 14.0% Asian, 5.1% White, 73.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% | Black or African American, 10.6% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 24.4% Asian, 6.8% White, 52.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7% |
| LGBT Percentage | 6% | 7% |