Damar Customer Service Apprenticeships
- Reception Apprentice
- Reservation Consultant Apprentice
- Call Centre Apprentice
- Food and Beverage Apprentice
- Retail Apprentice
- Hospitality Apprentice
Customer service apprenticeships are suitable for a wide range of sectors including law, accountancy, healthcare, financial services, hospitality, retail, property, media, manufacturing and distribution. Damar is headquartered in Manchester but we offer the Customer Service Practitioner Apprenticeship across the whole of England.
The Customer Service Practitioner Apprentice will develop the skills, knowledge and behaviours required to deliver high quality products and services to customers. The services may be delivered from the workplace, digitally, or through going out into the customer’s own locality. They 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.
Apprentices will learn how to positively influence the customer experience and their level of satisfaction. They must show excellent customer service skills and behaviours as well as product and/or service knowledge. The service must be in line with the organisation’s customer service standards and strategy and within appropriate regulatory requirements.
Interested in recruiting an apprentice or using apprenticeships to upskill existing staff?
The Damar Difference
Our Customer Service Apprenticeships have a number of unique features which employers and apprentices can benefit from:
- Flexible training that allows the apprentice to complete all of their apprenticeship studies in the workplace
- Regular interactions with experienced coaches and subject specialists, enabling learning to be broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks
- The opportunity for apprentices across different employers to learn from each other through group workshops and discussion forums
- Specialist support to help apprentices successfully achieve their end-point assessment
Customer Service Apprenticeship Delivery Model
Our unique programme is divided into distinct training blocks designed to engage and inspire our students. Each block has a clear objective and outcome, relevant content, demonstration and practice opportunity. Regular feedback is provided throughout the course. Apprentices have access to our Damar OpenLearning platform, where e-learning content is made available to develop knowledge and skills further.
The customer service apprenticeship covers the following topics:
Skills: Gaining interpersonal skills and confidence in internal and external communications
Role: How to deal with clients and queries while learning about new products and services
Organisation: Learn how to be organised and deal with customer conflict and challenge
Relationships: Develop relationships with colleagues, customers and suppliers
Team: How to work as part of a team to deliver excellent customer service
Regulations: Knowledge of the rules, regulations and legislations of the industry
Behaviours: Learn about the importance of personal development
Systems: How to use customer relationship management systems
People of all ages and educational backgrounds can undertake customer service apprenticeships, but there are some restrictions, the most important of which are:
- The employer and the training provider must ascertain that the apprenticeship will allow the individual to gain substantive new skills. The training therefore needs to be materially different from any prior qualification or previous apprenticeship;
- The apprentice must be employed, usually for 30+ hours a week, and work more than 50% of their time in England;
- The period of teaching and learning must be at least 12 months and, during this time, apprentices are expected to spend at least six hours per week (on average) on “off the job” training.
Employers that pay the Apprenticeship Levy are able to pay all of the training costs from their Apprenticeship Levy account.
Employers that do not pay the levy, as well as large employers who have spent their levy budget, pay just 5% of the overall cost, with the government paying the balance. For employers with fewer than 50 employees the 5% contribution is waived for apprentices aged 16-18.
There is never any cost to the apprentice, although apprentices’ salaries may reflect the investment being made by the employer.
Our Customer Service Practitioner Apprentices often move onto higher and/or more specialist apprenticeship pathways such as business administration, team leading and management.
Ann-Marie McGilvray
ICS Administration Manager,
Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Foundation Trust
The Benefits of Customer Service Training
- Achieve measurable improvements to employee knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitude – remember that customers can be both internal and external
- Gain improved customer interaction and increased customer satisfaction
- Empower teams to confidently handle dissatisfied customers – avoiding escalation
- Maintain consistency of standards across departments and office locations
- Benefit from high value, tailored training with minimal disruption to the working day
Latest news
Solicitor apprenticeships. The next stage and why Damar and BARBRI are leading the way
By Damar Training Managing Director, Jonathan Bourne Many of the best lawyers I have met do not have a “traditional” lawyer’s background. They went to …
Nurturing future talent
“Having completed my apprenticeship I know it’s not just a qualification, it has given me skills, knowledge and confidence that will benefit me throughout my …
More tips when applying for apprenticeships vacancies
Many employers offer apprenticeship vacancies, from large organisations to small businesses, so when you are applying an apprenticeship opportunity it’s important to consider your career …
Partner employers
