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Customer service specialists work in a wide range of sectors and organisations and provide direct customer support, being a referral point for dealing with more complex or technical customer requests, complaints, and queries, or an escalation point for complicated or ongoing customer problems.
They are experts in the organisation's products and/or services, share knowledge with their wider team and colleagues, gather and analyse data and customer information that influences change and improvements in service, and use organisational and generic IT systems to carry out their role with an awareness of other digital technologies.
Entry requirements will be set by the individual organisation. Employers are more likely to select individuals with more advanced inter-personal skills, and experience of working with customers in some capacity.
Apprentices will develop knowledge of:
Business understanding: Understand what continuous improvement means in a service environment and how your recommendations for change impact your organisation. Understand the impact their service provision has on the wider organisation and the value it adds. Understand the organisation's current business strategy in relation to customers and make recommendations for its future. Understand the principles and benefits of being able to think about the future when taking action or making service-related decisions. Understand a range of leadership styles and apply them successfully in a customer service environment.
Customer journey: Understand and critically evaluate the possible journeys of customers, including challenges and the end-to-end experience. Understand the reasons why customer issues and complex situations sometimes need referral or escalation for specialist attention. Understand the underpinning business processes that support them in bringing about the best outcome for customers and the organisation. Understand commercial factors and authority limits for delivering the required customer experience.
Knowing customers and their needs/customer insight: Know their internal and external customers and how their behaviour may require different approaches. Understand how to analyse, use and present a range of information to provide customer insight. Understand what drives loyalty, retention and satisfaction and how they impact on your organisation. Understand different customer types and the role of emotions in bringing about a successful outcome. Understand how customer expectations can differ between cultures, ages and social profiles.
Customer service culture and environment awareness: Keep current, knowledge and understanding of regulatory considerations, drivers and impacts in relation to how they deliver for customers. Understand the business environment and culture and the position of customer service within it. Understand the organisation structure and what role each department needs to play in delivering customer service and what the consequences are should things go wrong. Understand how to find and use industry best practice to enhance own knowledge.
Apprentices will develop skills in:
Business-focused service delivery: Demonstrate a continuous improvement and future focussed approach to customer service delivery including decision making and providing recommendations or advice. Resolve complex issues by being able to choose from and successfully apply a wide range of approaches. Find solutions that meet the organisation's needs as well as the customer requirements.
Providing a positive customer experience: Negotiate mutually beneficial outcomes through through advanced questioning, listening and summarising. Manage challenging and complicated situations within their level of authority and make recommendations to enable and deliver change to service or strategy. Use clear explanations, provide options and solutions to influence and help customers make choices and agree next steps. Explore and interpret the customer experience to inform and influence achieving a positive result for customer satisfaction. Demonstrate a cost-conscious mind-set when meeting customer and the business needs. Identify where highs and lows of the customer journey produce a range of emotions in the customer. Use written and verbal communication to simplify and provide complex information in a way that supports positive customer outcomes in the relevant format.
Working with your customers / customer insights: Proactively gather customer feedback, through a variety of methods. Critically analyse and evaluate the meaning, implication and facts and act upon it. Analyse customer types, to identify or anticipate their potential needs and expectations when providing a service.
Customer service performance: Maintain a positive relationship even when they are unable to deliver the customer's expected outcome. When managing referrals or escalations take into account historical interactions and challenges to determine next steps.
Service improvement: Analyse the end to end service experience, seeking input from others where required, supporting development of solutions. Make recommendations based on their findings to enable improvement. Make recommendations and implement where possible, changes in line with new and relevant legislation, regulations and industry best practice.
Apprentices will demonstrate the following behaviours:
Develop self: Proactively keep their service, industry and best practice knowledge and skills up to date. Consider personal goals related to service and take action towards achieving them.
Ownership/responsibility: Commit to and take ownership for actions to resolve customer issues to the satisfaction of the customer and the organisation. Exercise proactivity and creativity when identifying solutions to customer and organisational issues. Make realistic promises and deliver on them.
Team working: Work effectively and collaboratively with colleagues at all levels to achieve results. Recognise colleagues as internal customers. Share knowledge and experience with others to support colleague development.
Equality: Adopt a positive and enthusiastic attitude being open minded and able to tailor their service to each customer. Be adaptable and flexible to customer needs whilst continuing to work within the agreed customer service environment.
Presentation: Demonstrate brand advocacy, values and belief when dealing with customer requests to build trust, credibility and satisfaction. Ensure their personal presentation, in all forms of communication, reflects positively on the organisation's brand.
Throughout the programme the apprentice will receive expert training from highly qualified staff A qualified assessor will provide an induction and regular workplace assessments
Completion of this apprenticeship will lead to eligibility to join the Institute of Customer Service as an Individual Member.
