Customer Service Assistant Review

My job title is Customer Advisor and this primarily involves me being a hands on customer facing colleague. I am the first point of contact for customers when they walk in branch, whether I be sat at the counter position or in the banking hall with an iPad. I am expected to deliver excellent customer service and promote the products provided by the bank. I am also expected to be able to take ownership of the other tasks I am asked to do and complete them within a timely manner, such as the fire alarm test. My day to day activities include handling cash and taking it from and giving it to customers. I need to be able to listen to my customers and understand what they are looking to do when they walk in to branch and ensure that they have a seamless services where they feel valued by us colleagues in branch. I will also help the general set up of the branch in the morning which involves a variety of administrative activities and then I will support at the end of the day with closing the down the branch also.

I have achieved the level two btec in customer service level2 certificate in providing financial services. These are qualifications I did not think I would go on to achieve outside of further education, and as I am someone who has always enjoyed learning I have been pleased that I have been awarded these.

I have really enjoyed my program through Learndirect in partnership with Lloyds Banking Group. I found it to enhance many of my skills and has provided me with lots of information which I will be able to transfer across the business in different job roles as well as anything I may do externally in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed the Employment Rights and Responsibiltiies section of the course as this gave me a sound understanding of things which have impacted me and my job role as well as the sector I am employed in. I did not have any expectations as never have completedanything like this before but found an enjoyable experience.

Though there are aspects where by I feel the work I put in is not recognised or is not measured in line with the balanced scorecard and 1:1 document, generally I would say I am valued by the company. We get lots of development days hosted by the local director who spends time doing her best focusing on things which matter at the moment or providing hints and tips in how to do things in a new way. This is a great investment as we can lead from the front and take on the changes with great support from the managers around us.

I enjoyed the structure of the program but found that sometimes my tutor tried to do too much in the time slot allocated and this meant we overran and it impacted my other colleagues in branch. The induction was a very very long process and took much longer than either me or my manager had been told so this was something that could do with improvement. Additionally, the actual planning of meetings was very difficult with it being difficult from the banks point of view and the training provider not having much scope.

If I had any questions I was able to confidently message my tutor and he would respond as necessary. Though we had communication difficulty by email for whatever reason, I could text him or call him for support and he would always ask me if I needed any support during my meetings.

I received a fair amount of support from my employer and we made it work even with the time contraints and resources largely impacting us. I do feel like apprentices need to actually have a whole day each month compeltely dedicated to their apprenticeship rather than the odd hour here and there which I personally had. I ended up needing to do a lot of work outside of my day to day job to make up the loss of hours during employment time

Given that a lot of apprentices are on a minimum wage, the salary is very good in comparison to that. I have been able to pay for my living costs, travel costs and other daily costs on this salary absoluely fine. I have not had to go on any special courses or anything for this course, and the company I work for would imburse any other travel anyway.

When I am not at work I spend a lot of time reading; I am very into books and this is something I enjoy to do when I am feeling stressed out. I am also very passionate about photography and so spend a lot of time travelling around to take good photographs and improve my skills. Additionally I have two dogs and I love to play with them and walk them so spend a lot of time photographing them when we are going on long walks.

Yes

Lloyds Banking Group is large, varied and has lots of opportunites. You get an excellent salary package with great benefits that would be costly to personally buy. You have a great group of people to work with around you and lots of departments based across the country to explore.

I remember finding the initial application process quite tricky when I first applied, however the interview was a really positive experience. The training courses were really fun and I got to travel to Birmingham and stay for a few nights on multiple occasions. I had a great onboarding experience with my new manager and the first 6 weeks were a real learning curve but I had loads of support around me! The Lloyds Banking Group Job Shop has loads of jobs on it and although some of them you need to have experience in a particular area before you can apply, you have personal development days and you can use HIVE to set up a work experience day in another department to help with this.