Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between technical support representatives and customer support technicians can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both a technical support representative and a customer support technician. Additionally, a customer support technician has an average salary of $36,361, which is higher than the $34,758 average annual salary of a technical support representative.
The top three skills for a technical support representative include customer calls, smartphones and technical support calls. The most important skills for a customer support technician are customer service, customer support, and SQL.
| Technical Support Representative | Customer Support Technician | |
| Yearly salary | $34,758 | $36,361 |
| Hourly rate | $16.71 | $17.48 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 212,082 | 117,102 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 40% | Bachelor's Degree, 46% |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Years of experience | 2 | 2 |
Technical Support Representatives specialize in customer support through calls or correspondence. Among the primary responsibilities of a Technical Support Representative involves receiving and making calls, address and troubleshoot issues raised by the client, assist when navigating through complicated applications, provide suggestions or recommendations, or elevate the problem to personnel with higher expertise when necessary. Furthermore, a Technical Support Representative must coordinate with supervisors at all times, remain patient and proactive, and as well as maintain and organize records of each handled calls.
A customer support technician is responsible for resolving customer complaints with their network issues through remote communication, providing the customers with a step-by-step procedure to fix their systems. Customer support technicians assist the customers in setting up their programs and applications, guiding them with the instructional manuals, and responding to the inquiries and concerns they have. They also escalate high-level complaints to the immediate supervisor as needed while monitoring system solutions and creating technical tickets.
Technical support representatives and customer support technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Technical Support Representative | Customer Support Technician | |
| Average salary | $34,758 | $36,361 |
| Salary range | Between $27,000 And $44,000 | Between $23,000 And $56,000 |
| Highest paying City | Boston, MA | New York, NY |
| Highest paying state | Maryland | New Jersey |
| Best paying company | HP | Adobe |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Technology |
There are a few differences between a technical support representative and a customer support technician in terms of educational background:
| Technical Support Representative | Customer Support Technician | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 40% | Bachelor's Degree, 46% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Stanford University | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between technical support representatives' and customer support technicians' demographics:
| Technical Support Representative | Customer Support Technician | |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 61.5% Female, 38.5% | Male, 66.1% Female, 33.9% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 11.4% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 15.8% Asian, 10.6% White, 56.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4% | Black or African American, 10.7% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 16.2% Asian, 10.6% White, 56.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4% |
| LGBT Percentage | 11% | 11% |