When you’re good at what you do, and your customer service is at the highest level, the relationship with clients becomes more about being a business partner than simply providing a service.
The team of instructors at Pegasus Lift Truck Training, led by Directors Giuseppe (Pepe) and Dawn Girardi, offer a comprehensive range of manual handling and materials handling equipment training to clients across the UK in a wide range of sectors, and has been doing so for nearly 30 years. Whilst the core training provision is still at the heart of the Pegasus portfolio, an innovative and can-do approach has, over the years, led to clients relying on the team for far more than fork-lift
driver courses. The success of this approach can be seen in the 176 five-star Google reviews the company has received from trainees.
Operations Director, Dawn Girardi, explained:
“When we’re supporting clients, we always do whatever we can to help them and relationships are on a more personal level. Because we have a wealth of experience in the industry we know a lot of people and understand what businesses need, so we have become more of a brokering service than a straightforward training provider.
“After completing our courses, we often get asked about Fire Marshal or First Aid training, Manual Handling, Abrasive Wheels, Banksman, Racking etc and we are able to provide all types of courses. We will help our clients source exactly what they need from the trusted and reliable partnerships we have built up which saves our customer time ringing around.
“Just recently we had someone ask us about van driver safety training because they thought too many of their team were getting speeding tickets in London and also using excess fuel, so we arranged for a trusted specialist to go out with the individual drivers to assess and work out why the problems were happening. This led us to offering SAFED (Safe and Fuel Efficient Driving courses) as Giuseppe was qualified to teach these from his driving instructor days.
“If we can help, we will, and we like to feel we’re more of a partner to our clients than simply providing one service.”
The team at Pegasus Lift Truck Training puts hundreds of drivers a year through courses to ensure that they can safely operate anything from warehouse equipment to overhead gantry cranes, lorry mounted trucks, telehandlers, scissorlifts and cherry pickers in line with strict, accredited, safety guidelines. An Emergency Evacuation Escape Techniques course, using descenders and harnesses, for operating Very Narrow Aisle trucks was recently developed at the request of a long-standing customer and is now available to all Pegasus clients.
All courses meet PUWER (The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998), LOLER (Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998) and L117 legislation, giving operatives training in areas including stability, truck components, pre-shift checks, load weight distribution, handling techniques and vehicle loading and unloading in accordance with the Health & Safety At Work Act. Pegasus also run Manager and Supervisors courses for those who oversee drivers but do not drive the trucks themselves.
All Pegasus training is carried out on the client’s site, using the equipment the operators will be using in the workplace every day, and is tailored to the specific needs of each clients business. Some companies use in-house instructors, others prefer to have an external partner on hand. The benefit of an external partner is that the training delivered is always up to date and in line with current legislation. Giuseppe and his instructors continue to receive exceptional ITSSAR (Independent Training Standards Scheme and Register) Accreditation results in their annual monitoring visits.
Giuseppe said:
“We’re all about transparency, openness and honesty, and the knowledge of the team can be called upon to benefit the customer in any way necessary. Training drivers is the core of what we do, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Our knowledge of materials handling means that we can advise clients on the type of equipment they might need, who can provide that equipment, and our knowledge of the sector means that our experience and advice is invaluable.
“If we need to work out of hours to cover night shifts, then we do, travelling all over the country to deliver at client’s own sites so that the training is specially tailored to the driver’s environment, working hours and equipment.
“Coronavirus often means cancellations and postponements at clients’ sites, however, customers waiting for an earlier diary slot benefit from that, we rejig things and get their training done, then we can get back to the original customer when their staff are back in and the workplace is safe.
“My Italian background and working knowledge of European languages, has proved very useful over the years and only recently, we were asked to train a driver who was Eastern European and spoke very limited English, when I found out he’d spent some time in Italy, we were able to communicate. I think his employers were unsure about the language barriers but were pleasantly surprised when we switched and the training was carried out in Italian, the trainee felt more confident and safe and it got the job done.
“All we want is for our clients to get their teams fully trained and working safely and we’ll do whatever we need to do to make
that happen.”
Find out more about Pegasus Lift Truck Training or call 07736 248071 or 07801 631699
