Management, Human Resources, and Life in a Customer Focused World

Reposted from early last year — I’m still trying to find a similar survey done for 2008 compensation to see how things have changed.

The amount that a call center agent is paid makes a big difference to them and to the company’s success. In general, the median total cash compensation varies about $3 dollars depending on job role until you start to include the selling aspect of things. Many people don’t enjoy sales and aren’t good at it, so cash incentives are used to defray this. Median total cash compensation includes base pay and annual bonus/incentive.

Here’s a select list of functions with their median compensation for an intermediate-level representative. All wages are in hourly rates.

• Inbound order entry – $13.99
• Inbound with selling – $12.69
• Customer service – $12.98
• Internet support – $12.86
• Collections – $14.09
• Full account management – $14.56
• Technical support – $14.37
• Outbound with selling – $17.31

Taking the Outbound with selling outlier out of things, the range is $12.69 – $14.56 as the median compensation for a call center agent with some experience.
For Team/Group Managers, some of the same exact groups had the following median compensation (includes base pay and annual bonus/incentive)

• Inbound order entry – $61,400
• Inbound with selling – $65,500
• Customer service – $69,200
• Internet support – $63,700
• Collections – $69,900
• Full account management – $73,700
• Technical support – $63,100
• Outbound with selling – $71,900

Compensation levels vary from $61,400 to $73,700 — a range of $12,400. This equates to approximately from $29.50 to $35.43 per hour, a $5.97 variance.
The areas that I expected to be the highest (outbound with selling) wasn’t — the agents have a much large difference between the highest non-selling and that level (over $3 per hour) but the team/group manager was highest at the Account Management level. After considering this, it makes sense — full account management requires a much greater level of quality management and focus on standardized processes. A customer that has assigned account managers will expect greater service and, in turn, a company needs to pay for it at the manager level.