Customer Service Apprenticeship
Occupational Profile
The role of a customer service practitioner is to deliver high quality products and services to the customers of their 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. 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.
Entry Requirements
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.
Standards
Apprentices must meet all of the core requirements of the standards, examples of which are shown below. You can download the full standards from the government's website at:-
Knowledge
- You will understand who your customers are
- You will know the purpose of the business and what ‘brand promise’ means
- You will know the appropriate legislation and regulatory requirements that affect your business.
- You will know how to use systems, equipment and technology to meet the needs of your customers
- You will know the targets and goals you need to deliver against
- You will understand how to build trust with a customer and why this is important
Skills
- You will be able to 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
- You will be able to provide clear explanations and offer options in order to help customers make choices that are mutually beneficial to both the customer and your organisation
- You will demonstrate patience and calmness in dealing with customer conflict
Behaviours
- You will take ownership of keeping your service knowledge and skills up-to-date
- You will act on and seek feedback from others to develop or maintain personal service skills and knowledge
- You will uphold the organisations core values and service culture through your actions
- You will demonstrate personal pride in the job through appropriate dress and positive and confident language
- You will use communication behaviours that establish clearly what each customer requires and manage their expectations.
Downloads (full details from government website)
Apprenticeship Standard for a Customer Service Practitioner
Assessment plan for a Customer Service Practitioner
Key Facts
Campus: Hereford Campus & County Training
Minimum Age: 16
Level: 2
Duration: This apprenticeship will take a minimum of 12 months to complete
Typical Employment:
From the Level 2 Intermediate Apprenticeship, opportunities include customer relationship manager, customer support agent, customer service operator and customer relations officer.
From the Level 3 Advanced Apprenticeship roles could include customer service supervisor, customer service manager or senior advisor.
Contact
Telephone: 0800 032 1986
Email: apprenticeships@hlnsc.ac.uk