Skillsfirst Awards Ltd · RQF Level 3
Skillsfirst level 3 NVQ Diploma in Contact Centre Operations (QCF)
You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.
- LevelRQF Level 3
- Total credits42
- Units in this qualification45
Awarded by Skillsfirst Awards Ltd · on the Ofqual register
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See how this course maps onto your role
Ten quick questions, one per Future Fluency, asked against this qualification rather than a generic one.
About 5 minutes · No card · Nothing to commit to
What you’ll learn
What each unit actually teaches you to do
These are the units Skillsfirst Awards Ltd registers against this qualification. It is a catalogue, not a syllabus. Which of them you take depends on the combination the qualification requires, and that is set by the awarding body rather than by us. Every unit here is regulated, and every one you earn is yours to keep.
Bespoke SoftwareReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Input and combine information using bespoke software
- Create and modify appropriate structures to organise and retrieve information efficiently
- Exploit the functions of the software effectively to process and present information
Buddy a colleague to develop their customer service skillsReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Plan and prepare to buddy a colleague
- Support their buddy colleague on the job
- Provide buddy support off the job
- Understand how to buddy a colleague to develop their customer service skills
Build a customer service knowledge setReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Input details of customer queries and requests and develop responses
- Use a customer service knowledge base
- Understand how to build a customer service knowledge set
Carry out direct sales activities in a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Gather information needed for direct sales activities in a contact centre
- Carry out direct sales to customers through a contact centre
- Keep accurate and up-to-date direct sales records within a contact centre
- Comply with relevant regulations and legislation during direct sales activities in a contact centre
- Understand how to conduct sales activities effectively in a contact centre environment
Champion customer serviceReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Promote the importance and benefits of customer service
- Provide advice and information on customer service issues
- Champion customer service
Communicate information to customers through a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Communicate verbally with customers referred by others in a contact centre
- Communicate in writing with customers referred by others in a contact centre
- Support colleagues and monitor compliance with organisational communications guidelines in a contact centre
- Understand the principles of communication with customers in a contact centre
Comply with health and safety procedures in a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Comply with organisational health and safety procedures in a contact centre
- Minimise health and safety risks relating to the job role in a contact centre
- Understand the principles of health and safety in a contact centre
Contribute to performance management in a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Monitor individual and team performance in a contact centre
- Contribute to the enhancement of performance in a contact centre
- Understand performance management in a contact centre
Contribute to resource plan development in contact centre operationsReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Produce demand forecasts for contacts handled by contact centres
- Carry out scheduling and staffing activities in a contact centre
- Understand how to develop a resource plan for contact centre operations
Coordinate customer communication processes in a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Develop customer communication policies in a contact centre
- Support the development of customer service procedures and guidelines for use by front line colleagues in a contact centre
- Enhance customer service through effective customer communication in a contact centre
- Understand the principles of managing communication with customers in a contact centre
Deal with customers using bespoke softwareReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Prepare to deliver customer service using bespoke software
- Deliver customer service using bespoke software
- Understand how to deal with customers using bespoke software
Deal with incidents through a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Deal with incidents through a contact centre
- Use contact centre communications systems to deploy incident management resources
- Understand how to deal with incidents in a contact centre
Develop personal and organisational effectiveness in a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Improve performance in a contact centre
- Obtain feedback on work performance in a contact centre
- Use feedback to improve personal and organisational effectiveness in a contact centre
- Understand the principles underpinning personal and organisational effectiveness in a contact centre
Develop working relationships with colleaguesReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the benefits of working with colleagues.
- Establish working relationships with colleagues.
- Act in a professional and respectful manner when working with colleagues.
- Communicate with colleagues.
- Identify potential work-related difficulties and explore solutions.
Develop your own customer service skills through self-studyReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Find ways to learn more about customer service and their job
- Use sources of self-development to extend their customer service skills and knowledge
- Develop their own customer service skills through self-study
Gather, analyse and interpret customer feedbackReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Plan to gather customer feedback
- Gather customer feedback
- Analyse and interpret customer feedback
- Understand how to gather, analyse and interpret customer feedback
Handle referred customer complaintsReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Investigate referred customer complaints
- Take action to deal with referred customer complaints
- Identify repeated customer complaints and recommend changes to policies and procedures
- Understand how to handle referred customer complaints
Handling objections and closing salesReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how to handle sales objections effectively, using appropriate techniques and strategies.
- Understand how to close a sale successfully, ensuring customer satisfaction and achieving sales targets.
- Handle objections from potential customers in a professional and persuasive manner.
- Close sales effectively, converting leads into paying customers.
IT Communication FundamentalsReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Select and use a variety of sources of information to meet needs
- Access, search for, select and use Internet-based information and evaluate its fitness for purpose
- Select and use IT to communicate and exchange information safely, responsibly and effectively
Lead a team to improve customer serviceReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Plan and organise the work of a team
- Provide support for team members
- Review performance of team members
- Understand how to lead a team to improve customer service
Lead direct sales activities in a contact centre teamReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Carry out direct sales activities effectively within a contact centre environment.
- Analyse contact centre sales data to identify trends, opportunities, and areas for improvement.
- Lead a team involved in direct sales activities in a contact centre, providing guidance, support, and motivation.
- Understand the various sales activities involved in a contact centre team, including processes, techniques, and regulations.
Leading a sales or marketing teamReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Set clear and measurable targets for the sales or marketing team, aligned with organisational objectives.
- Support the motivation of individual members within the sales or marketing team.
- Monitor and evaluate the progress of the sales or marketing team against agreed targets and performance indicators.
Maintain customer service through effective handoverReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Agree joint responsibilities in a customer service team
- Check that customer service actions are seen through by working together with colleagues
- Understand how to maintain customer service through effective handover
Maintain customer support operations in a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Review customer contact activities in a contact centre
- Deal with customer complaints about customer contacts and/or products and/or services
- Ensure compliance with organisational and regulatory requirements in a contact centre
- Understand the management of customer support in a contact centre
Manage conflict in a teamReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Support team members’ understanding of their role and position within a team.
- Take measures to minimise conflict within a team.
- Understand how to encourage team members to resolve their own conflicts.
- Understand legal and organisational requirements concerning conflict.
Manage customer service delivery in a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Manage escalation processes for difficult customer service issues in a contact centre
- Manage the monitoring of customer service performance and feedback in a contact centre
- Review organisational and regulatory requirements for customer service delivery in a contact centre
- Understand the management of customer service in contact centres
Manage customer service in own area of responsibilityReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Establish and communicate measurable customer service standards for own area of responsibility.
- Support staff in meeting customer service standards.
- Monitor and evaluate customer service performance, systems and processes.
Manage direct sales activities in a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Review the use of sales information and sales techniques in a contact centre to identify areas for improvement.
- Develop plans for direct sales in a contact centre, setting targets and outlining strategies to achieve them.
- Develop individual and team sales performance in a contact centre through coaching, training, and performance management.
- Understand the management of sales activities in a contact centre, including planning, organising, and controlling sales processes.
Manage incidents referred to a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Manage incidents through a contact centre
- Provide support to colleagues on incident management in a contact centre
- Understand how to manage incidents reported to a contact centre
Manage or support equality of opportunity, diversity and inclusion in own area of responsibilityReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Understand own responsibilities under equality legislation, relevant codes of practice and own organisational policies.
- Communicate an organisation’s written equality, diversity and inclusion policy and procedures in own area of responsibility.
- Monitor equality, diversity and inclusion within own area of responsibility.
Monitor health and safety procedures in a contact centreReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Assess health and safety risks in a contact centre
- Monitor compliance with health and safety procedures in a contact centre
- Provide guidance on health and safety matters in a contact centre
- Understand the principles underpinning health and safety in their area of work in a contact centre
Monitor the quality of customer service transactionsReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Prepare to monitor the quality of customer service transactions
- Monitor the quality of customer service transactions
- Give feedback on the quality of customer service transactions
- Understand how to monitor the quality of customer service transactions
Negotiating, handling objections and closing salesReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how to handle objections and negotiate effectively with the customer to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome.
- Prepare for potential objections and negotiation points with the customer, anticipating their concerns and developing appropriate responses.
- Handle objections from the customer in a professional and persuasive manner, addressing their concerns and providing solutions.
- Negotiate with the customer to reach an agreement that meets their needs while achieving the organisation's sales objectives.
- Close the sale effectively following negotiation, confirming the agreement and securing the customer's commitment.
Plan, allocate and monitor work of a teamReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Plan work for a team.
- Allocate work across a team.
- Manage team members to achieve team objectives.
- Monitor and evaluate the performance of team members.
- Improve the performance of a team.
Process customer service complaintsReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Recognise the signs that a query or problem is about to produce a complaint
- Deal with a complaint effectively
- Understand how to process customer service complaints
Set objectives and provide support for team membersReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Communicate a team’s purpose and objectives to the team members.
- Develop a plan with team members showing how team objectives will be met.
- Support team members identifying opportunities and providing support.
- Monitor and evaluate progress and recognise individual and team achievement.
Supervise customer service activities in a contact centre teamReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Resolve difficulties in customer service in a contact centre
- Monitor customer service performance and compliance with contact centre organisational and regulatory requirements
- Understand customer service activities in contact centres
Support customers and colleagues when providing contact centre servicesReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Communicate information about products and/or services to customers in a contact centre
- Monitor compliance with organisational requirements for customer contacts
- Provide advice and support to colleagues in a contact centre
- Understand how to support colleagues and customers in a contact centre
Support customers using on-line customer servicesReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Establish the type and level of support their customer needs to achieve on-line customer service
- Support on-line customer service in conversation with their customer
- Understand how to support customers using on-line services
Support team members in identifying, developing and implementing new ideasReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Develop team ideas and develop the creativity of team members
- Assess the viability of team members’ ideas.
- Support team members to implement ideas.
- Implement team ideas.
Support team use of contact centre systems and technologyReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Provide guidance to colleagues on contact centre systems and technology
- Produce new reports in a contact centre
- Adjust system parametres to optimise performance in a contact centre
- Report on potential system enhancements in a contact centre
- Understand the use of systems and technology to support contact centre operations
Using Collaborative TechnologiesReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Stay safe and secure when working with collabourative technology
- Plan and set up IT tools and devices for collabourative working
- Prepare collabourative technologies for use
- Contribute to tasks using collabourative technologies
Using EmailReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Use e-mail software tools and techniques to compose and send messages
- Manage incoming e-mail effectively
Using the InternetReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Connect to the Internet
- Use browser software to navigate webpages effectively
- Use browser tools to search for information from the Internet
- Use browser software to communicate information online
- Understand the need for safety and security practices when working online
Work with others to improve customer serviceReal unit · Skillsfirst Awards Ltd
What you'll be able to do
- Improve customer service by working with others
- Monitor their own performance when improving customer service
- Monitor team performance when improving customer service
- Understand how to work with others to improve customer service
The honest bit
You’ve started things before
Most courses were built for a room full of people who aren’t you. A cohort moves on whether or not your week allowed it, and by the third week the thing you’re behind on becomes the reason you stop opening it.
There’s no cohort here, and no timetable to fall behind. Before anything starts, Zavmo asks when you’re sharpest and how long you can realistically sit down for, then builds the sessions around those answers. A bad fortnight changes your pace. It doesn’t put you behind.
And you only pay once you start learning. Searching and planning are free, and you can cancel any time — so the cost of finding out is an afternoon, not a year.
Your passport
Every credit is a stamp you keep
Level 3 credits are regulated. They don’t vanish when a subscription ends or a website closes. They travel to any employer, and Zavmo keeps the map of what you’ve earned and what’s next.
Each stamp is a real unit registered against this qualification.
Who’d teach you this
The Evidence Evaluator
Assessor
Helps you show what you can actually do, gathering the evidence that proves it as you learn.
Meet all twelve tutorsWhere this connects
Where these credits take you
A qualification is never a dead end here. See the jobs its credits open, the national occupational standards its units map to, and the future skills they quietly build.
- Cultivating a Safe Workplace Through Research and Engagement
- Develop Productive Working Relationships with Colleagues
- IT Communication Fundamentals
- Lead a team to develop and improve customer service
- Manage Conflict in Your Team
- Using the Internet
Where this can lead
Lead Customer Service Team Leader
This Lead Team Leader role is a fantastic launchpad for a significant career in customer experience leadership. It's challenging, rewarding, and will equip you with a diverse set of skills that are always in demand. We're looking for someone who sees this not just as a job, but as a stepping stone to making a real, lasting impact.
See the whole journey →Showing 6 roles, drawn from 238 job records mapped to this qualification.
Skills it covers
What the job actually needs. These are the standards the units are built against, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.
How you’ll actually learn this
One-to-one, on your own real work
A qualification is usually something done to you: sit the class, sit the exam, hope it sticks. Here it’s the opposite. You learn it one-to-one with a companion, on your own real work, and you keep going until you can use it, not just recall it.
Applied to your work in any of these jobs
- Remember
- Understand
- Apply
- Analyse
- Evaluate
- Create
Built for Skillsfirst level 3 NVQ Diploma in Contact Centre Operations (QCF)
45 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Skillsfirst Awards Ltd.
- Bespoke Software
- Buddy a colleague to develop their customer service skills
- Build a customer service knowledge set
- Carry out direct sales activities in a contact centre
- Champion customer service
- Communicate information to customers through a contact centre
and 39 more in the full unit list below.
One to one, not one to many
No two people run this the same way
A course is written once and handed to everyone. This is assembled around you, and keeps changing as it learns you. Five things it reads, and what each one changes.
- Your actual work Every unit is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
- What you already know The first conversation finds your starting point, so you skip what you can already do and spend the time on what you cannot.
- The conditions you learn under Not a learning-styles quiz. The evidence does not support those. The dimensions the research does back, read once and used to shape the plan.
- How far you got last time It picks up mid-thought. The tutor knows what you said, what you struggled with, and what it asked you to try.
- Which tutor suits the moment Twelve of them, each for a different kind of thinking. The one who walks you through a first idea is not the one who stress-tests it.
See how you learn, free. Eight questions, no sign-up. A directional taster; the diagnostic inside Zavmo goes deeper and keeps adapting.
Why it sticks
Most courses stop at remembering
There’s a well-known ladder of how deeply you learn something, called Bloom’s Taxonomy. Most courses get you up the first two rungs: you remember some facts, you pass a test, you forget it. Real skill lives at the top. Judging, deciding, creating. And this isn’t a generic ladder: every rung has a named Zavmo tutor who walks you up it.
- 6CreateThe Creative Catalyst
- 5EvaluateThe Evidence Evaluator
- 4AnalyseThe Analyst
- 3ApplyThe Coach
- 2UnderstandThe Connector
- 1RememberThe Builder
Where most courses leave you Where Zavmo takes you
The value
Why the companion is worth £70 a month
You’re not paying for the units. They’re regulated, and the same wherever you earn them. You’re paying for the one thing that decides whether you actually get there: a companion that makes them stick, on your real work.
That is one-to-one on this qualification, every day, on the work you already do, for £70 a month. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it. Billed monthly, cancel any time and billing stops.
Earned on your own work, taught to the top.
Everything you just read, learned one-to-one on the job you already do. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it.
Build my plan, freeNo card. See how this qualification maps onto your role and meet the tutors who’d teach it, free. The learning begins when you subscribe. It’s £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.