According to new research from Temkin Group, customer service (CX) agents who were surveyed are happy with their jobs and believe that their company values their work.

The research, State of the Customer Experience Profession, 2014, examines response from 293 CX professionals in late fourth quarter 2013, about their current jobs and compares their responses to similar studies completed over the previous three years. The research also includes Temkin Group's first-ever compensation study of CX professionals, with annual compensation of individual respondents ranging from $30,500 to $872,500.

Ninety-eight percent of those surveyed agree with the statement "customer experience is a great profession to be in," and 83 percent agree with the statement "their company appreciates CX professionals like them." These levels have stayed relatively steady since 2010.

CX professionals believe that they are helping their organizations. Eighty-seven percent feel that their CX efforts have had a positive impact on their organizations in 2013 and 98 percent expect to have a positive impact in 2014. The positive outlook comes from increasingly supportive leaders. The percentage of respondents who agree that their executive team is committed to their company's customer experience goals has grown from 77 percent last year to 82 percent this year.  CX professionals are the most actively involved in voice of the customer programs, customer insight analysis, and change management and culture change. When it comes to their organization's interactions, they're most frequently involved in customer service.

"Customer experience professionals are a happy bunch, they enjoy their work and feel as if they are making a difference for their organizations as well as for society overall," said Bruce Temkin, managing partner, Temkin Group.

The study also examined annual compensation levels for 131 CX professionals within large organizations, those with 1,000 or more employees. The median total compensation for five different CX roles are as follows: Mid-level individual contributors earn $90,000, expert-level individual contributors earn $145,000, leaders of groups of 15 or fewer people earn $145,000, leaders of groups larger than 15 people earn $177,500, and executives earn $260,000.

The research also examined the backgrounds of people across the five different CX roles. Here are some of those findings:

• The average professional experience ranges from 13.0 years for mid-level individual contributors to 20.8 years for executives.
• The average experience in CX roles ranges from 4.5 years for mid-level individual contributors to 11.5 years for executives.
• The CX professionals who have an undergraduate degree ranges from 88 percent for individual contributors to nearly 100 percent other roles.
• Expert individual contributors are the most satisfied with their overall compensation.