Students and practitioners

Become a customer service professional

If your main responsibility is to make sure customers get a high standard of service we can help you become a professional in the field. This responsibility may be very clear from your job title — you may be a customer service assistant or customer services officer. But even where your job isn’t quite so obviously about customer service — you may be a shop assistant, receptionist or a hospital porter — you'll understand that satisfying customers is at the heart of what you do, and you'll have demonstrated this commitment by undertaking training.

How we'll help you

Practitioner members of the Institute have access to a broad range of resources and research:

• over 70 customer service fact sheets. Our fact sheets provide an overview of the main areas of customer service thinking.
• our archive of Institute magazine articles
• dozens of how-to guides

You'll also receive our monthly newsletter so you can keep updated of the latest Institute and customer service news.

What you'll need to become a member

Anyone who is working towards an NVQ in Customer Service or an Institute qualification can apply for student membership.

You can also apply for practitioner membership of the Institute if you hold an Institute qualification, or an NVQ in any of the following:

• Amenity horticulture
• Call handling
• Clinical laboratory support
• Distribution, warehousing and storage
• Floristry
• Footwear repairs
• Hairdressing and beauty dispensation for RWE
• Hire and rental operations
• Hospitality supervision
• Housing and council tax benefits
• Insurance standards — general and intermediaries
• Investigations
• Land registry
• Local land charges function
• Local taxation
• Operational services
• Retail operations
• Treework
• Vehicle parts operations

If you're studying for a customer service qualification download and return the Student Membership Application Form. If you already have a qualification download and return the Practitioner Member Application Form.