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The differences between technical support technicians 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 technician and a customer support technician. Additionally, a technical support technician has an average salary of $40,210, which is higher than the $36,361 average annual salary of a customer support technician.
The top three skills for a technical support technician include customer service, technical support and patients. The most important skills for a customer support technician are customer service, customer support, and SQL.
| Technical Support Technician | Customer Support Technician | |
| Yearly salary | $40,210 | $36,361 |
| Hourly rate | $19.33 | $17.48 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 165,677 | 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 technicians are skilled professionals who resolve computer or information technology-related concerns. They may do installations, repairs, or maintenance activities of various applications or computer hardware. They are sometimes assigned specific issues or concerns to resolve so that they will not be bombarded with various issues. This means that they can now specialize in a specific family of concerns. Technical support technicians may provide on-site support, going directly to the person who needs help and doing what needs to be done or troubleshoot the problem in person. They may also be offsite and would usually be manning helpdesk hotlines. Offsite technical support technicians walk the caller through the steps they should do to fix the issues. As such, when a technical support technician is offsite, they are expected to be good communicators and will be able to provide clear instructions.
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 technicians and customer support technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Technical Support Technician | Customer Support Technician | |
| Average salary | $40,210 | $36,361 |
| Salary range | Between $24,000 And $64,000 | Between $23,000 And $56,000 |
| Highest paying City | Philadelphia, PA | New York, NY |
| Highest paying state | Pennsylvania | New Jersey |
| Best paying company | Ropes & Gray | Adobe |
| Best paying industry | Finance | Technology |
There are a few differences between a technical support technician and a customer support technician in terms of educational background:
| Technical Support Technician | 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 technicians' and customer support technicians' demographics:
| Technical Support Technician | Customer Support Technician | |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 66.7% Female, 33.3% | Male, 66.1% Female, 33.9% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 10.6% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 16.9% Asian, 10.6% White, 56.1% 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% |