Sales, Marketing & Procurement Apprenticeships

Entry requirements:

Individual employers will set the selection criteria for their Apprenticeships. Most candidates will have Level 1 Maths and English, ideally as part of 5 GCSE A-C grades. Other relevant or prior experience may also be considered as an alternative

Qualification outcomes

Customer Service Practitioner Level 2

Progression:

Completion of this apprenticeship will lead to eligibility to join the Institute of Customer Service as an Individual member at Professional level.

Job role

Customer Service Assistant, Customer Service Advisor, Customer Service Trainee, Customer Service Administrator

Overview of role

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.

Your actions will influence the customer experience and their satisfaction with your organisation. You will demonstrate excellent customer service skills and behaviours as well as product and/or service knowledge when delivering to your customers. You provide service in line with the organisation’s customer service standards and strategy and within appropriate regulatory requirements. Your customer interactions may

cover a wide range of situations and can include; face-to-face, telephone, post, email, text and social media

Entry requirements

Although there are no required qualifications needed for this apprenticeship, Individual employers will set the selection criteria for their Apprenticeships. Most candidates will have Level 2 Maths and English, ideally as part of 5 GCSE A-C grades. Other relevant or prior experience may also be considered as an alternative. Those without Maths and English will need to complete these alongside their course.

Qualification outcomes

Customer Services Specialist Level 3

Progression

Upon completion learners may choose to progress further in education or search for a more senior role within a new/current workplace.

Job Role

Customer Relationship Manager, Customer Support Officer, Customer Service Supervisor, Customer Service Co-ordinator, Customer Service Team Leader

Overview of role

The main purpose of a customer service specialist is to be a ‘professional’ for direct customer support within all sectors and organisation types. You are an advocate of Customer Service who acts as a referral point for dealing with more complex or technical customer requests, complaints, and queries. You are often an escalation point for complicated or ongoing customer problems. As an expert in your organisation’s products and/or services, you share knowledge with your wider team and colleagues. You gather and analyse data and customer information that influences change and improvements in service. Utilising both organisational and generic IT systems to carry out your role with an awareness of other digital technologies. This could be in many types of environment including contact centres, retail, webchat, service industry or any customer service point.