Publisher Services Apprentice (Customer Services)

Summary

In this apprenticeship, you'll work within our Publisher Services Team at Macmillan Distribution, gaining exposure to a variety of our publishers, delivering exceptional customer service and commercial development tasks.

Wage

£17,500 a year

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Increasing by £500 every six months for the duration of the apprenticeship.

Training course

Customer service specialist (level 3)

Hours

Monday to Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m

35 hours a week

Start date

Monday 1 September 2025

Duration

2 years

Positions available

1

Work

Most of your apprenticeship is spent working. You’ll learn on the job by getting hands-on experience.

What you'll do at work

To liaise with publisher(s) to ensure a prompt and accurate response to all correspondence received by way of a task
management system or other medium, working to agreed service levels
Ensure communication with both internal, external personnel and publisher(s) is carried out in an appropriate and effective manner
To take ownership of problems / queries / issues which may arise on behalf of the publisher and ensure amicable resolution, or to escalate to departmental management where appropriate
To arrange, attend, participate in liaison meetings and conference calls, in close liaison with other MDL departments, to a defined meeting schedule
Assist in the resolution of action points arising from those meetings within agreed service level
Adopt a proactive approach to any queries encountered both from publishers or other areas within MDL, in order to assist in the continuous development/automation of systems and procedures
Attend any training courses that your manager feels would be beneficial to your career development
Conduct oneself in a positive manner which promotes the department and company values
Promote and maintain the correct standards of health and safety within the workplace

Where you'll work

Cromwell Place Hampshire International Business Park
Lime Tree Way
Basingstoke
Hampshire
RG24 8YJ

Training

Apprenticeships include time away from working for specialist training. You’ll study to gain professional knowledge and skills.

College or training organisation

THE SKILLS PARTNERSHIP LIMITED

Your training course

Customer service specialist (level 3)

Understanding apprenticeship levels (opens in new tab)

What you'll learn

Course contents

Business focused service delivery: Demonstrate a continuous improvement and future focussed approach to customer service delivery including decision making and providing recommendations or advice
Business focused service delivery: Resolve complex issues by being able to choose from and successfully apply a wide range of approaches
Business focused service delivery: Find solutions that meet your organisations needs as well as the customer requirements
Providing a positive customer experience: Through advanced questioning, listening and summarising negotiate mutually beneficial outcomes
Providing a positive customer experience: Manage challenging and complicated situations within your level of authority and make recommendations to enable and deliver change to service or strategy
Providing a positive customer experience: Use clear explanations, provide options and solutions to influence and help customers make choices and agree next steps
Providing a positive customer experience: Explore and interpret the customer experience to inform and influence achieving a positive result for customer satisfaction
Providing a positive customer experience: Demonstrate a cost conscious mind-set when meeting customer and the business needs
Providing a positive customer experience: Identifying where highs and lows of the customer journey produce a range of emotions in the customer
Providing a positive customer experience: Use written and verbal communication to simplify and provide complex information in a way that supports positive customer outcome in the relevant format
Working with customers/customer insights: Proactively gather customer feedback, through a variety of methods. Critically analyse, and evaluate the meaning, implication and facts and act upon it
Working with customers/customer insights: Analyse your customer types, to identify or anticipate their potential needs and expectations when providing your service
Customer Service performance: Maintain a positive relationship even when you are unable to deliver the customer’s expected outcome
Customer Service performance: When managing referrals or escalations take into account historical interactions and challenges to determine next steps
Service Improvement: Analyse the end to end service experience, seeking input from others where required, supporting development of solutions
Service Improvement: Make recommendations based on your findings to enable improvement
Service Improvement: Make recommendations and implement where possible, changes in line with new and relevant legislation, regulations and industry best practice

Your training plan

Monthly online workshops and meeting with their tutor throughout the duration of the programme
Training will take place online

Requirements

Essential qualifications

GCSE in:

English (grade C or 4)
Maths (grade C or 4)

Let the company know about other relevant qualifications and industry experience you have. They can adjust the apprenticeship to reflect what you already know.

Skills

Communication skills
IT skills
Attention to detail
Organisation skills
Administrative skills
Team working
Initiative
Manage Priorities
Time Management
Proactive attitude

About this company

Macmillan Distribution (MDL) is the award-winning distribution arm of the Macmillan Publishing Group. MDL provides a distribution service for its own Group publishers as well as distribution services to over 40 third party publishers. The commercial operations are based in Basingstoke and the warehouse in Swansea ensures a smooth operation of receiving, storing and distributing an extensive range of books, handling over 40,000 titles.

https://www.macmillandistribution.co.uk/customer-service (opens in new tab)

After this apprenticeship

Successful completion of the Level 3 qualification in Customer Service, working within the Publisher Services Team
and progression of your role.

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