business customer service advisor Review

I am a customer service representative at RBS, my job role includes attending to the needs of business and personal customer. It is a telephony based role and on a day to day basis my role includes providing customers with the best service possible, answering any queries they have related to their accounts, giving out balances and making transfers/payments making sure I am following my procedures to avoid any potential fraud. I also have to deal with more complex queries where you are having to enrol customers for online banking or going through forms which they have sent in to get them processed. I have to also interact with internal departments depending on customer queries, so I deal with external customers and internal colleagues as my department is the first point of contact.

I have never worked in a telephony based role so this was a new experience in itself as all my past job roles have been customer facing. I am competent on the phone and have increased my customer service skills in this way through knowing how to build rapport with customers whilst also completing what the customer has asked me to. I have also learnt how to multi task efficiently as I have to check multiple things whilst on the call to prevent fraud whilst also making a conversation with the customer and lastly also attending to their needs.

At the beginning of the apprenticeship I did not enjoy it much as there was no clear guidance of what I was to do or where to start with my work, neither from BPP or my own workplace. I was part of the first batch of apprentices for RBS hence why they were not clued on as much and were all over the place with this. I took it upon myself to email my BPP coach for help and advice. I was not getting much help from my coach so then I took the route to complain as I just wanted to get on with starting my work but I did not know where to start with. I mentioned this to my work manager who then set up a conference meeting with BPP to get some sort of structure from them. This meeting was useful as both BPP and RBS had a clearer structure to go by to help each other and the apprentices. I was then appointed a new BPP coach who has been amazing. she has been of great help and support, always checking up on me, clear work load given, provides me with quick and efficient feedback for my work, monthly review calls in detail and has helped me to finish it quicker than expected. I also think the BPP website is hard to navigate around and is very long winded and confusing. It could be made simpler with todays technology/IT skills in place.

At first the programme was not at all organised or structured as mentioned above until myself and other apprentices put the issue across to our managers to ask for help and guidance. It was not structured from both BPP and the bank itself, the problem was BPP had not clarified the programme to ourselves or our managers here and RBS were not familiar with how it works as it was their first time with apprentices. Once we had our meeting with BPP everything started falling into place a lot more clearer. So it was all down to less communication between both parties.

I receive a lot of support from my manager who always helps whenever asked, sits down to understand things with me and also attends all my monthly reviews which I have with my BPP coach to get feedback from my coach and an understanding of where I am within my course. I also get given time of the phone weekly around an hour to do my work which is great but I don't think its enough time to get a whole section completed, or sometimes just isn't enough overall.

As mentioned above I did not receive much help from my first BPP coach which was provided to myself but then later this coach was replaced with a new one. My new coach is of so much help, she is amazing and helped me get to where I am within my qualification today.

My level 2 customer service qualification helps me to perform better in my role on a day to day basis as through this I am highly focused naturally on providing the best customer service to all customers. treating all customers equally and fairly whilst adhering to company policies. Also helps me to get involved with my team members through activities I need to complete within my apprenticeship, this helps them and gives them a better understanding of what work I am doing towards my qualification and also helps my team building skills. Overall this apprenticeship does definitely help me with my day to day role as I am more cautious around what kind of customer service I am providing.

Yes, there is a lot of charity work which the bank gets involved in, every month there is a new charity we donate to. I have also taken part in 'children in needs' day were I took ownership of raising money for charity by coming up with an activity 'pie in the face'. This is were we asked a manager who agreed to let colleagues pie him in the face. There was also a lot of other activities going on around that day and in total between 4 of us we raised £270. As a bank there is a lot of local community work the bank does as in help the homeless, clean up around parks/forests programmes, help young kids and educate them in finances.

Yes

As it is a great place to work, people are great and there is a lot of support. There is also a lot of career development opportunities within the bank and managers are of great support. Working environment is great and chilled. Pay is matches up to the work you do, have yearly reviews and get rewarded for great work yearly.

Have the motivation to thrive and do better. Take hold of all opportunities given to you and work together as a close nit team. Be honest and have a passion to succeed. Ask for help and don't be shy, its daunting at first but it all becomes second nature. do your best as you do get rewarded and recognised for great work.