Kia Service/Parts Advisor Apprentice - Ashford
ASHFORD ORBITAL LTD
ASHFORD (TN24 0HB)
Closes in 28 days (Wednesday 1 October 2025 at 11:59pm)
Posted on 3 September 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 and may require the occasional weekend work where required. Working hours TBC.
40 hours a week
- Start date
-
Thursday 2 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
MONUMENT WAY
ORBITAL PARK
ASHFORD
TN24 0HB
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
Working towards a Level 3 Customer Service Specialist Apprenticeship Standard, including Functional Skills if required.
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
Ashford Orbital is part of JCB Motor Group. Throughout all our JCB Group dealerships in Kent and Sussex, it is our aim to deliver a personal, friendly, caring and professional service to all of our customers, since we are a customer centric business. At the JCB Group we provide our customers with quality new and used vehicles, full aftercare facilities, fleet, rental and motability services, exceeding a customers automotive expectations. Whether you're just around the corner or across the country, our premium products are here for you. From convenient vehicle delivery to our JCB Concierge service, we go the extra mile and provide the JCB Group difference. Our Story Where we've come from and what makes us different? Back in 1998 our Owner and Managing Director, Jonathan Bischoff, had worked his way up to a Sales & Brand Manager in the local car industry, but thought, "I want to do things differently". Jonathan contacted Volkswagen UK Headquarters, a brand he most respected, and put forward his case. In December 1998 he was selected to become one of the first Volkswagen Sponsored Retailers, and at 28 years old, the youngest. Thus the JCB Group was born with just one showroom, which is now our Head Office, at JCB Medway in Gillingham Business Park. Over the following years, additional brands, buildings and businesses have been added to the group, expanding it from one brand, one branch to multiple manufacturers, used car and van outlets, car and van rental sites, corporate fleet sales, a van modification collaboration and trade parts centres at over 30 sites in Kent, Sussex and Essex. Jonathan remains at the head of the company, very much hands on with day-to-day business. Continuing to travel to each branch, meeting with managers and staff on a daily basis.
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 VAC1000340228.
Apply now
Closes in 28 days (Wednesday 1 October 2025 at 11:59pm)
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