Customer Service Practitioner

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 by 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, aftercare, service recovery or gaining insight through measuring customer satisfaction. You may be the first point of contact through face to face, telephone, post or email communications and work in any sector or organisation type.

To see whether you’re eligible for this apprenticeship, you will need to complete a skill scan to check your knowledge prior to starting.

Entry Requirements:

Down to the discretion of individual employers but typically includes:

Level 1 English and Mathematics, or equivalent (can be completed during the apprenticeship)
16 or over
Not in Full-Time Education

All apprenticeship standards cover three overall sections, these being Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours. Each of these areas is associated with a specific standard and covers topics that are relevant to that industry and profession. The core topics covered for the Level 2 Customer Service Practitioner apprenticeship are below.

Knowledge

Knowing your Customers and Organisation
Meeting Regulations and Legislation
Systems and Resources
Your Role and Responsibility
Customer Experience
Product and Service Knowledge

Skills

Self-Awareness and Your roles and Responsibilities
Interpersonal Skills
Your Customers
Your Organisation
Legislation
Systems
The Customer Experience
Products and Services
Communication
Influencing Skills
Personal Organisation and Professionalism

Behaviours

Developing Self
Being Open to Feedback
Team Working
Equality - Treating all Customers as Individuals
Presentation and Dress Code
Professional Language

The training is a blended learning delivery model, which occurs on the job during working hours. A structured learning and assessment plan is put in place to test core components of the course along the way.

This consists of:

1-to-1 monthly meeting: Approx. two hours with a GLP Trainer (face-to-face or telephone)
Online learning courses and/or group sessions
Building an electronic portfolio of work-related evidence
Maths and English Level 2 (if not previously achieved)
6 hours a week spent working towards your apprenticeship.
End Point Assessment by an external examiner to complete the qualification, consisting of a resourcing project assignment and a professional discussion.

To achieve the qualification, within which you can either get a result of Pass, Distinction or Fail, you will be assessed both throughout the period of your apprenticeships, as well as in the final stages with an End Point Assessment (EPA).

End Point Assessment:

The EPA period will only start once the employer is satisfied that the apprentice is consistently working at or above the level set out in the occupational standard.

In addition, the apprentice must have completed the following gateway requirements prior to beginning EPA:

Functional Skills Qualification (if required to do so).

The End Point Assessment process which typically takes 3 months and is carried out by Highfields, consists of three components:

Apprentice Showcase:
Apprentices will reflect and present examples of their development over the whole on-programme period in the form of a presentation, report, storyboard, journal etc. to demonstrate their understanding and application of what they have been taught.
Practical Observation:
The apprentice will be observed by an assessor in their normal work environment to assess how they deal with different customer service situations. Examples of what will be assessed include: handling a general enquiry, dealing with a customer complaint or a need for further information or detail.

Professional Discussion:
A discussion between the assessor and learner, where any questions related to the learners journey, or scenarios that they may be faced with in their role are asked to identify their ability to deal with situations.

The combined score of these three methods will provide the final grade for the apprenticeship.

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

Completing this qualification can lead to higher roles in a variety of sectors that require Customer Service such as, Team Leader, Supervisor, Customer Service Manager, Customer Service Representative.

Download our 2023-2024 prospectus

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Download a detailed course guide

Course guide

Download our 2023-2024 prospectus

Download a detailed course guide

Customer Service Practitioner

2

13+ months

Apprenticeships

RESOURCES

Consulting