Kia Service/Parts Advisor Apprentice - Barnstaple
HOWARD GARAGES (WESTON) LIMITED
Barnstaple (EX32 8QA)
Closes on Monday 29 September 2025
Posted on 21 August 2025
Contents
Summary
All Kia Apprenticeships are nationally recognised. In addition, apprentices will be provided with the opportunity to achieve additional recognised qualifications that support apprentices' career development, allowing them to be recognised and accredited Kia Dealer employees. With industry-leading success rates, now is a great time to join us!
- Wage
-
£15,704 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age
National Minimum Wage rate for apprentices
- Training course
- Customer service specialist (level 3)
- Hours
-
Monday - Friday, full-time (40-hrs per week) and may require the occasional weekend work where required. Working hours TBC.
40 hours a week
- Start date
-
Wednesday 1 October 2025
- Duration
-
1 year 6 months
- 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
The Kia Combined Service and Parts apprenticeship programme will support the apprentice to gain the knowledge and skills needed to become a fully qualified and accredited Kia service and parts advisor.
Once qualified, they will be responsible for:
- Customer contact and experience
- Taking customer bookings and scheduling services and repairs
- Communicating the customer's work and faults to the vehicle technicians
- Handling customer complaints
- Advice and guidance for vehicle care and warranty retention and warranty claims
- Taking orders from customers, both face-to-face and over the phone
- Maintaining an ordered stock room and finding parts from stock
- Raising invoices
- Advise on accessories and modifications
- Warranty claims and returns
Where you'll work
Howard Avenue
Barnstaple
EX32 8QA
Training
Apprenticeships include time away from working for specialist training. You’ll study to gain professional knowledge and skills.
Training provider
SKILLNET LIMITED
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
Training schedule
As part of the apprenticeship training, apprentices will complete 8 blocks of learning covering the following subjects:
- Professional development
- Delivering a quality business-focused service
- Teamwork
- Cultural and environmental awareness
- Communication and influencing skills
- Delivering customer excellence
- Handling customer complaints
- Inventory and stock management
- Receiving and processing payments
More training information
Apprentices will attend block training (Monday-Wednesday) at the state-of-the-art Kia Academy in Derby.
Hotel accommodation is provided to apprentices travelling to Derby, and the cost is funded by the employer. Meaning apprentices will not be required to cover the costs of travel or accommodation during their stay.
Requirements
Desirable qualifications
GCSE in:
- English (grade 4 or C and above)
- Maths (grade 4 or C and above)
Share if you have other relevant qualifications and industry experience. The apprenticeship can be adjusted to reflect what you already know.
Skills
- Communication skills
- IT skills
- Attention to detail
- Organisation skills
- Customer care skills
- Problem solving skills
- Presentation skills
- Administrative skills
- Team working
About this employer
Howards began as a single garage in 1972 and over the last 50+ years we have grown to 26 retail locations, representing 14 manufacturers, whilst still maintaining the values of a family business. Our success has been built on a passion for delivering exceptional customer care, ensuring our customers come back to us time and time again. This dedication was recognised in both 2023 and 2024 when Howards became the highest-scoring AM100 retailer group in the UK for Reputation. Reputation is an independent company that collects real customer feedback. Our consistent top scores demonstrate our strong connection and positive interactions with customers. Chris Lee, Managing Director of Howards Motor Group said, “Our dedication to putting our customers first drives these results. Whether through the service we provide in our showrooms or the support we offer through our aftersales operations, ensuring that every customer receives an exceptional experience is embedded in our culture.”
https://www.howardsgroup.co.uk/howards-barnstaple (opens in new tab)
After this apprenticeship
Upon completion apprentices will be eligible to apply for supervisor and/or sales senior roles within the dealership.
Ask a question
The contact for this apprenticeship is:
SKILLNET LIMITED
Belinda Macdonald
recruitment@skillnet.org.uk
The reference code for this apprenticeship is VAC1000338281.
Apply now
Closes on Monday 29 September 2025
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