Overview
A customer service apprenticeship will place you at the heart of a business. You are the direct link between the business and its customers.
The role of a customer service practitioner is to deliver high quality products and services to the customers of an organisation. Your core responsibility will be to provide a high quality service to customers which will be delivered from the workplace, digitally, or through going out into the customer’s own locality.
Course Description
As a Customer Service Practitioner Apprentice, you will be responsibility for providing a high quality service to customers which will be delivered from the workplace, digitally, or through going out into the customer’s own locality.
These may be one-off or routine contacts and include dealing with orders, payments, offering advice, guidance and support, meet-and-greet, sales, fixing problems, after care, service recovery or gaining insight through measuring customer satisfaction. You may be the first point of contact and work in any sector or organisation type.
Your apprenticeship will enable you to demonstrate excellent customer service skills and behaviours as well as product and/or service knowledge when delivering to your customers. You will learn to provide service in line with the organisation’s customer service standards and strategy and within appropriate regulatory requirements.
Why choose Training Now as your education apprenticeship provider?
We make sure that all our apprenticeships are designed to help you learn and progress towards long-term career goals.
You’ll be allocated a Teaching and Learning Coach, who is a specialist in the field. They’ll support you on a one-to-one basis, with additional online tutorial support.
Read all about our apprenticeship standards and framework.
Entry criteria
You’ll need to:
- have the right to work in the UK.
- be 16 years or older after the last Friday in June of the academic year.
- not be enrolled on another apprenticeship, or another funded FE/HE programme at the same time as the apprenticeship.
- have a contract of employment with your employer and be paid at least the apprenticeship wage in your first year.
What you will learn
Knowledge
Knowing your customers
- Understand who customers are.
- Understand the difference between internal and external customers.
- Understand the different needs and priorities of your customers and the best way to manage their expectations, recognising and knowing how to adapt style to be highly effective.
Understanding the organisation
- Know the purpose of the business and what ‘brand promise’ means
- Know your organisation’s core values and how they link to the service culture.
- Know the internal policies and procedures, including any complaints processes and digital media policies that are relevant to you and your organisation.
Meeting regulations and legislation
- Know the appropriate legislation and regulatory requirements that affect your business.
- Know your responsibility in relation to this and how to apply it when delivering service.
Systems and resources
- Know how to use systems, equipment and technology to meet the needs of your customers.
- Understand types of measurement and evaluation tools available to monitor customer service levels.
Your role and responsibility
- Understand your role and responsibility within your organisation and the impact of your actions on others.
- Know the targets and goals you need to deliver against.
Customer experience
- Understand how establishing the facts enable you to create a customer focused experience and appropriate response.
- Understand how to build trust with a customer and why this is important.
Product and service knowledge
- Understand the products or services that are available from your organisation and keep up-to-date.
Skills
Interpersonal skills
- Use a range of questioning skills, including listening and responding in a way that builds rapport, determines customer needs and expectations and achieves positive engagement and delivery.
Communication
- Depending on your job role and work environment:
- Use appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication skills, along with summarising language during face-to-face communications; and/or
- Use appropriate communication skills, along with reinforcement techniques (to confirm understanding) during non-facing customer interactions.
- Use an appropriate ‘tone of voice’ in all communications, including written and digital, that reflect the organisation’s brand.
Influencing skills
- Provide clear explanations and offer options in order to help customers make choices that are mutually beneficial to both the customer and your organisation.
Personal organisation
- Be able to organise yourself, prioritise your own workload/activity and work to meet deadlines.
Dealing with customer conflict and challenge
- Demonstrate patience and calmness.
- Show you understand the customer’s point of view.
- Use appropriate sign-posting or resolution to meet your customers needs and manage expectations.
- Maintain informative communication during service recovery.
How will you learn
An apprenticeship is a genuine job with an accompanying assessment and skills development programme. You’ll gain valuable work experience and earn as you learn on the job.
Our e-learning platform brings the subject to life through interactive learning tools and access to complementary online resources.
As well as learning on the job, you will be allocated a Teaching and Learning Coach, who is a specialist in the field. They will support you on a one-to-one basis, with additional online tutorial support.
Qualifications
Level 2 qualification
Apprentices will be required to have or achieve level 1 English and Maths and to have taken level 2 English and Maths tests prior to completion of their Apprenticeship.
Progression
Completion of this apprenticeship will lead to eligibility to join the Institute of Customer Service as an Individual member at Professional level.
It will also enable you to go on and study for a Customer Service Specialist level 3 qualification.
