Customer service practitioners work in a range of sectors and locations and provide a high quality service to customers of the organisation communicating face-to-face or by telephone, post, email text or social media.
They may often be the first point of contact within the organisation and their actions will influence customer experience and satisfaction, therefore they will need to demonstrate excellent customer service skills and product/service knowledge.
They must provide customer service in line with the organisation's standards and strategy and operate within appropriate regulatory requirements and guidelines.
Contact with customers may be on a one-off or routine basis and can include dealing with orders and payments, offering advice, guidance and support, meet-and-greet, sales, fixing problems, aftercare, service recovery or gaining insight through measuring customer satisfaction.
The selection process will include a basic initial assessment and an interview during which suitability, commitment and interest for the programme will be determined.
Apprentices will develop knowledge of:
Knowing customers: Understand who customers are. Understand the difference between internal and external customers. Understand the different needs and priorities of 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 the 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 them and the organisation.
Meeting regulations and legislation: Know the appropriate legislation and regulatory requirements that affect the business. Know their 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 customers. Understand types of measurement and evaluation tools available to monitor customer service levels.
Role and responsibility: Understand their role and responsibility within the organisation and the impact of their actions on others. Know the targets and goals they need to deliver against.
Customer experience: Understand how establishing the facts enable them 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.
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 the job role and work environment use appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication skills, along with summarising language during face-to-face communications. 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 organisation.
Personal organisation: Be able to organise self, prioritise own workload/activity and work to meet deadlines.
Dealing with customer conflict and chaslenge: Demonstrate patience and calmness. Show they understand the customer's point of view. Use appropriate signposting or resolution to meet customers' needs and manage expectations. Maintain informative communication during service recovery.
Developing self: Take ownership for keeping their service knowledge and skills up to date. Consider personal goals and propose development that would help achieve them.
Being open to feedback: Act on and seek feedback from others to develop or maintain personal service skills and knowledge.
Teamworking: Frequently and consistently communicate and work with others in the interest of helping customers efficiently. Share personal learning and case studies with others, presenting recommendations, and improvement to support good practice.
Equality: Treat customers as individuals to provide a personalised customer service experience. Uphold the organisation's core values and service culture through their actions.
Presentation: Demonstrate personal pride in the job through appropriate dress and positive and confident language. 'Right first time' Use communication behaviours that establish clearly what each customer requires and manage their expectations. Take ownership from the first contact and then take responsibility for fulfilling their promise.
Throughout the programme the apprentice will receive expert training from highly qualified staff A qualified assessor will provide an induction and regular workplace assessments
With experience, you could progress to team leader or customer services manager. You could also move into sales or account handling.
