What does a support specialist do?
A support specialist is responsible for assisting technical and administrative support, depending on the business need. Support specialists must have extensive knowledge of the services of the organization they work for to assist customers with their inquiries and resolve complaints efficiently. A support specialist maintains documents of issue resolution, providing recommendations to improve business strategies and procedures. Support specialists must be well-versed on technology systems, perform basic troubleshooting, and secure databases. They should also have impeccable customer service and communication skills to attend with customers' needs and requests.
Support specialist responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real support specialist resumes:
- Manage project SharePoint site for the purpose of supporting ongoing collaboration
- Provide Cerner CPOE learning support to physicians.
- Train in motivational interviewing, HIPAA regulations, CPR certify, emergency preparedness, suicide awareness, and team building.
- Participate in inventory taking process and maintain stockroom organization and cleanliness.
- Create and maintain a database of ACH clients.
- Configure, setup VPN connections, remote access.
- Handle all reimaging of OS upgrades and reloads.
- Help elementary school students with math and reading.
- Tutor students one on one in math and reading.
- Follow up with customers within appropriate service level agreement (SLA).
- Assist the floor as a SME during the week and on Saturdays.
- Assist team in user acceptance testing for upgrades to the EHR system.
- Provide EHR training for new hires in individual or small group settings.
- Train employees at the Rockford, IL service centers via WebEx application.
- Provide proofreading for pitches, presentations, confidential memorandums, and other documents.
Support specialist skills and personality traits
We calculated that 16% of Support Specialists are proficient in Customer Service, Patients, and Mental Health. They’re also known for soft skills such as Customer-service skills, Listening skills, and Speaking skills.
We break down the percentage of Support Specialists that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Customer Service, 16%
Provide exceptional customer service to participants and families/caregivers
- Patients, 8%
Perform clinical reviews on assigned patients, using approved criteria from the State of California Medi-Cal/Medi-Care guidelines.
- Mental Health, 6%
Qualified mental health associate coordinating with child and family therapists, providing behavioral support to intensive community treatment level service clients.
- Social Work, 4%
Collaborated with child's social worker to gather information on income, living arrangement and other information to make eligibility decision.
- Peer Support, 4%
Established positive collaborative relationship with local peer support center, referring clients and assisting in their participation efforts.
- Data Entry, 3%
Performed administrative activities including data entry into a reporting platform, reconciliation, and dividend and interest payment calculation and processing.
Common skills that a support specialist uses to do their job include "customer service," "patients," and "mental health." You can find details on the most important support specialist responsibilities below.
Customer-service skills. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for a support specialist to have is customer-service skills. Their role and responsibilities require that "computer support specialists must be patient and sympathetic." Support specialists often use customer-service skills in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "managed and oversight of 30+ customer support incidents daily, balanced internal process and customer requirements during internal escalation process. "
Listening skills. Another soft skill that's essential for fulfilling support specialist duties is listening skills. The role rewards competence in this skill because "support workers must be able to understand the problems that their customers are describing and know when to ask questions to clarify the situation." According to a support specialist resume, here's how support specialists can utilize listening skills in their job responsibilities: "involved up-selling, excellent communication, advanced listening and data entry. "
Speaking skills. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of support specialists is speaking skills. This skill is critical to many everyday support specialist duties, as "support workers must describe the solutions to computer problems in a way that a nontechnical person can understand." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "addressed lms-related help desk tickets from customer support team. "
Writing skills. A big part of what support specialists do relies on "writing skills." You can see how essential it is to support specialist responsibilities because "strong writing skills are useful for preparing instructions and email responses for employees and customers, as well as for real-time web chat interactions." Here's an example of how this skill is used from a resume that represents typical support specialist tasks: "cross-trained in review and underwriting and data entry. "
Problem-solving skills. Another crucial skill for a support specialist to carry out their responsibilities is "problem-solving skills." A big part of what support specialists relies on this skill, since "support workers must identify both simple and complex computer problems, analyze them, and solve them." How this skill relates to support specialist duties can be seen in an example from a support specialist resume snippet: "established customer support protocols to provide outstanding issue resolution to internal and external customers for b2b solution. "
The three companies that hire the most support specialists are:
- Central City Concern340 support specialists jobs
- Biolife Plasma Services312 support specialists jobs
- BioLife Solutions167 support specialists jobs
Choose from 10+ customizable support specialist resume templates
Build a professional support specialist resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your support specialist resume.
Compare different support specialists
Support specialist vs. Technical specialist
The role of technical specialists is to provide technical support for applications and programs to staff members and customers within an organization. They train staff and customers on products and apps and offer advice on the best practices for utilizing technical programs and applications. They also design training materials to teach other staff members the most effective methods of using its technology. It is also their job to reduce company costs by looking for ways to improve productivity and lessen expenses.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, support specialist responsibilities require skills like "mental health," "social work," "peer support," and "data entry." Meanwhile a typical technical specialist has skills in areas such as "project management," "customer satisfaction," "c++," and "c #." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Technical specialists earn the highest salaries when working in the technology industry, with an average yearly salary of $92,419. On the other hand, support specialists are paid more in the technology industry with an average salary of $49,388.The education levels that technical specialists earn slightly differ from support specialists. In particular, technical specialists are 2.7% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a support specialist. Additionally, they're 0.8% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Support specialist vs. Information specialist
An information specialist is responsible for obtaining data through various strategies such as surveys, research, and analysis. It is essential to coordinate with different teams to learn their data needs and utilize them upon gathering. There may also be instances where an information specialist must work with other groups for tasks, such as building databases and networks. Furthermore, it is essential to ensure data integrity, protect their source's identities, adhere to all the company's policies and regulations, and abide by the state law when gathering information.
While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that support specialist responsibilities requires skills like "mental health," "social work," "peer support," and "technical support." But an information specialist might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "foia," "windows," "social security," and "data analysis."
In general, information specialists achieve similar levels of education than support specialists. They're 1.6% more likely to obtain a Master's Degree while being 0.8% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for support specialists in the next 3-5 years?
Claire Strom Ph.D.
Rapetti-Trunzo Chair of History, Rollins College
Support specialist vs. Computer specialist
A computer specialist's responsibilities typically revolve around installing and repairing computer hardware and software. They meet with clients to identify their needs, examine and troubleshoot equipment, perform upgrades, and discuss the extent of repairs or replacements to clients. In a company setting, a computer specialist is in charge of overseeing an array of equipment, conducting regular maintenance checks, and performing corrective measures as needed. Furthermore, they must provide technical support, all while implementing the company's policies and regulations.
Some important key differences between the two careers include a few of the skills necessary to fulfill the responsibilities of each. Some examples from support specialist resumes include skills like "customer service," "patients," "mental health," and "social work," whereas a computer specialist is more likely to list skills in "desk support," "network printers," "os," and "cloud computing. "
Computer specialists make a very good living in the professional industry with an average annual salary of $78,107. On the other hand, support specialists are paid the highest salary in the technology industry, with average annual pay of $49,388.When it comes to education, computer specialists tend to earn similar degree levels compared to support specialists. In fact, they're 0.9% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.4% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Support specialist vs. Administrative support specialist
An administrative support specialist is an individual who is involved in the office management, clerical tasks, and back-office duties of an organization. To run the office smoothly, administrative support specialists must manage the purchasing and inventory of office supplies as well as schedule the maintenance of office equipment. They serve as a liaison for executives by screening incoming calls and emails, sorting mails, and setting appointments with employees, customers, and vendors. Administrative support specialists must also be able to draft memos and edit report proposals and other business documents.
Updated January 8, 2025
