Customer Service Representative (Order Desk): Job Description, Salary, and Duties
$44,770/yearBLS median
A customer service representative on the order desk takes customer orders by phone, email, and portals, keys them into the ERP, and answers the questions that come with them: stock, price, ship date, and where is my order. In distribution and manufacturing this is often the same seat as order entry, with more time on the phone.
Customer Service Representative (Order Desk) Salary
| Source | Figure | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| BLS OES (Customer Service Representatives, SOC 43-4051) | $44,770/year median | May 2025, 2,595,750 employed in the US |
| Fully loaded employer cost | ~$64,000/year | BLS median x 1.43 (benefits are 31.4% of total compensation per BLS ECEC) |
Customer Service Representative (Order Desk) Salary by State
Median annual wage for customer service representatives (SOC 43-4051) by state. Source: BLS OES May 2025, fetched via BLS API 2026-06-09 (SOC 43-4051, 43-5061 and 43-1011 states and SOC 15-1211 added 2026-10-22). States with suppressed BLS estimates are omitted.
| State | Median wage | Employment |
|---|---|---|
| Washington | $50,330/yr | 39,760 |
| California | $49,560/yr | 176,850 |
| Massachusetts | $49,120/yr | 49,990 |
| Minnesota | $48,800/yr | 53,340 |
| District of Columbia | $48,250/yr | 7,550 |
| Delaware | $48,190/yr | 7,470 |
| Connecticut | $48,090/yr | 24,490 |
| New York | $48,000/yr | 141,090 |
| New Jersey | $47,740/yr | 59,690 |
| Rhode Island | $47,550/yr | 7,890 |
Customer Service Representative (Order Desk) Job Description (Copy-Paste Template)
Responsibilities
- Take customer orders and enter them into the ERP with correct items, quantities, units, pricing, and ship-to details
- Answer stock, price, lead time, and order status questions while the customer is on the line
- Confirm orders back to the customer with ship dates and flag anything that will miss the cutoff
- Process order changes, cancellations, and return requests
- Look up customer item numbers and order history to resolve vague or partial requests
- Coordinate with the warehouse, purchasing, and sales reps on backorders and rush orders
- Log every customer contact and promise in the ERP or CRM so the next person can pick it up
- Escalate pricing disputes, credit holds, and complaints to the right owner
Requirements
- 1+ years in customer service, inside sales, or order entry, ideally B2B
- Comfortable on the phone with buyers, store managers, and sales reps
- ERP or order management system experience
- Accurate multi-line numeric entry while talking to a customer
- Clear written email for order confirmations and delay notices
Nice to Have
- Product knowledge from distribution, wholesale, or manufacturing
- Experience with customer portals or B2B ecommerce orders
- Familiarity with EDI orders and acknowledgments (850, 855)
- A second language your customers speak
Want this tailored to your order channels and ERP? Use the free job description generator.
Interview Questions That Actually Screen
A customer calls and orders "the same as last time, but double the blue ones." Walk me through what you do.
What to listen for: Pulls up the order history, reads the lines back, and confirms items, quantities, and units before entering. Never guesses which item "the blue ones" means.
You have a customer on hold, two voicemails, and 15 emailed POs before a 2pm cutoff. How do you work it?
What to listen for: Triage by cutoff and customer impact, tells each caller when they will hear back, and asks for help before the cutoff passes, not after.
A customer insists their price is lower than what the system shows. What do you do?
What to listen for: Checks the contract and price list, does not change the price on the call without authority, and gives the customer a time for an answer.
How do you confirm an order so there are no surprises at delivery?
What to listen for: Reads back items, quantities, units, ship-to, and ship date, then sends a written confirmation.
Tell me about a time you had to give a customer bad news on an order, like a backorder or a missed ship date.
What to listen for: Called early, offered options (substitute, partial shipment, new date), and logged what was promised.
Job Outlook
BLS Employment Projections show customer service representatives employment falling from 2,666,000 to 2,524,100 over 2025 to 2035, a 5.3% decline. BLS counts every customer service representative here, from call centers to retail, so read the trend as background. On a B2B order desk, the keying is the part of the job automation takes over first. The customer conversations stay with a person.
Before You Post the Req
On many order desks the CSR's day splits between talking to customers and retyping emailed and PDF orders into the ERP while the phone rings. Automate the retyping and the same person spends the day on calls, exceptions, and customers who need a human. Before you add a second CSR, measure how much of the first one's day is keying.
- Manual order entry costs and error rates (BLS-verified per-order math)
- Manual order entry cost calculator (your volume, your wages)
- Free PO extractor (upload one of your real order PDFs and watch the capture step disappear)
How to Test Order Extraction Before You Buy
Vendors demo on a clean, typed, single-page order. Your orders are scans and spreadsheets. Here is the test protocol, the seven traps that decide the result, and how to score a trial honestly.
- How to build a test set that reflects what you actually receive
- The seven traps that break extraction, unit of measure first
- How to score at the line, so a near-miss counts as the error it is
- The questions to ask every vendor, including us
One email with the download. Unsubscribe any time.
FAQ
How much does an order desk customer service representative make?
BLS puts the median for customer service representatives at $44,770 per year, or $22.40 an hour (May 2025). That figure covers every industry, not only order desks. Fully loaded employer cost on the BLS median is roughly $64,000 per year.
What is the difference between a CSR and an order entry clerk?
On many B2B order desks it is the same seat. Order entry clerks focus on keying orders accurately. CSRs also own the customer conversation: quotes, order status, delays, and complaints. Read the duties, not the title.
Is customer service a growing job?
BLS projects customer service representative employment to fall 5.3% from 2025 to 2035, from about 2.67 million to 2.52 million jobs, with about 289,500 openings a year over the decade.