Trade counterman Review

My role involves serving customers to the best of my ability and exceeding their expectations in terms of customer service, as well as counting and helping to control the depots stock, creating, chasing and following through on leads for customers as well as reaching out to customers to see if they have any jobs we could assist with.

Some of the new skills that I have learnt whilst in my apprenticeship at Howdens include customer service skills and how to use the K8 software used to create and sell orders, whilst further developing my communication, listening, memory, product knowledge skills and time management skills to list a few.

So far I am 6 months into the apprenticeship and I have really enjoyed it up to this point. It has been such a change from college and school before that. I enjoy talking to the people who are coming into the depot and satisfying their expectations is nice. The coursework I work through alongside is a nice change from work and is challenging to work through at times

In my opinion the structure of the program I am working through is fairly well organised as it is fairly linear and easy to understand with some overarching tasks that take longer to complete are allocated more time, with shorter tasks having less. from the very start my tutor has shown me how my course is structured and made sure I understand

I receive more than enough support within the workplace from all the other members of staff around me to assist me with any issues that I encounter. Everyone is very supportive and is happy to help on a moments notice or even to jump out on the counter to cover for me if theres another task I need to do

My training provider/ tutor only comes in on a monthly basis and so the amount of support I get from him is a bit limited but for when he does come in the support is all I could ask for. Something that could maybe be improved in this area would be to increase the amount of times I see him to talk in person

I feel that some of the aspects of my qualification helps me to perform better in my job role. Aspects such as understanding the job role in more detail and the little things that make it up, business backgrounds and the structures of different businesses, and some of the things that go on behind the scenes of businesses all help my role

There are some extra curricular activities that Howdens offer. some of the extra curricular activities offered are a rounders event, a go karting event and some online courses to help you understand some of the items a little more. alongside this there are also talks held between employees to talk through some ideas that may be implamented

Yes

I would recommend Howdens to a friend as my experience with the business thus far has been positive. we offer a fast and friendly service and hold items in stock for same day take away. In terms of products we offer one of the widest selections of ranges and colours.

Some advice I would give to anyone who is wishing to apply to Howdens would be to be confident in their role and really get to know the products they are selling, so that when they are talking to customers they are confident and know what it is they are talking about