What Is the Wages of a Customer Service Worker?

A customer service worker speaking to a customer calling for assistance.

Excellent support and service to customers iare often key factors to an organization's success. Customer service workers are the link between an organization and its customers. These professionals take customer orders, provide information on the status of an order, answer questions about products or services and provide an overall helpful presence to customers for an organization. In November 2010, PayScale reported average wages based on 16,027 individuals working as customer service representatives.

Average Wages

Many customer service workers are paid an hourly wage, plus overtime for working over 40 hours per week. The average salary ranged from $10.17 to $14.71 per hour. Overtime wages ranged from $14.92 to $22.16 per hour. Most employers also offer health care benefits, including medical, dental and vision. 70 percent of customer service workers reported receiving medical care, 59 percent reported receiving dental care and 45 percent reported receiving vision care.

Additional Compensation

Some employers also offer additional compensation to customer service workers. Bonuses are often based on individual performance and distributed from an allotted amount of the organization's overall revenue. Profit sharing is offered based on the organization's performance on a yearly basis. Average bonuses ranged from $306 to $1,946 per year and average profit sharing ranged from $513 to $2,430 per year.

Commissions

Some employers require customer service workers to sell additional products or services to customers, which is referred to as upselling. Many customer service workers are paid commissions for upselling products or services. Average commissions ranged from $747 to $5,049 per year.

Industries

Customer service workers can be found in almost all industries including banking, insurance, retail, manufacturing and customer service solution providers. Some employers require customer service workers to have skills in their industry to qualify for job openings. The highest wages were reported in the manufacturing and distribution industries, where customers service workers earned average salaries ranging from $12.36 to $16.56 per hour. In the banking industry, average salaries ranged from $10.83 to $13.82 per hour and in the insurance industry, average salaries ranged from $10.95 to $14.96 per hour.

Experience

Customer service workers increase their salary as they gain professional experience. Those with one to four years of experience earned average salaries ranging from $9.71 to $13.47 per hour, and those with five to nine years of experience earned average salaries ranging from $10.58 to $14.83 per hour. Those with over 10 years of experience earned average salaries ranging from $11.50 to $17.14 per hour.

References

• Bureau of Labor Statistics: Customer Service Representatives
• PayScale: Hourly Rate Snapshot for Customer Service Representative (CSR) Jobs
• PayScale: Hourly Rate Snapshot for Customer Service Representative (CSR) Jobs by Industry
• PayScale: Hourly Rate Snapshot for Customer Service Representative (CSR) Jobs by Experience
• The Upsell: Top 5 Secrets to Great, Amazing, Stupendous Customer Service