Work Related Learning - Year 10 Discuss the Importance of Customer Service in a Business with Higgins

Work skills students in year 10 took part in a live online interactive session on ‘Customer Service’ with Melissa Facey – a Social Value Apprentice with the construction company Higgins. Following an introduction of the role and place of Higgins, a family-run business, in the built environment sector, the talk evolved around the importance of the consultation stage when planning a project in an area and building a positive relationship with local communities and ended with a ‘Question and Answer’ session. Students involved are in the process of completing their module ‘Customer Service’ and will certainly be able to include what they learnt in their Prince’s Trust coursework. Higgins as our new business partner have also expressed interest in continuing to work with this group of students, and in any other project, in the future to help them get an insight into the world of work and demonstrate how curriculum learning can be linked to careers.

Students’ feedback

Mateus – Year 10 student
‘The speaker talked about how she started her career doing a range of jobs before joining her current one. Then she talked about her role in Higgins and how she supports customers who are directly concerned and resolves problems that may arise. I think this will help me because I asked questions to a person who has direct experience with customer service on a daily basis and know more about the industry.’

Gustavo - Year 10 student.
‘Today we talked to Melissa from Higgins and I learned more about customer service. Higgins is a family owned business and does everything to make their customers happy. This workshop will help me in the future with setting up the right customer service therefore I'll be able to set up a good business.’

T S - Year 10 student.
‘3 things I learnt from this talk with Melissa Facey: Higgins has been around for 57 years and tries to keep a positive environment towards all their customers. They are also a very diverse community and welcome people of all backgrounds. This will help me in the future because I now know how important customer service is in jobs and how to gain loyalty of customers.’

G M - Year 10 student
‘Higgins advice for good customer service is to always have patience and follow the client’s pace when dealing with them because with a great customer service more customers would come forward to buy one of your products or services. This workshop helps me in my project with Prince's Trust and gives me ideas of how we should act when we own a business.’

Business feedback
Melissa Facey, Social Value Apprentice
‘The customer service presentation with the students went very well, they were all engaged and asked a lot of questions during the session which showed their enthusiasm in this module. We are happy that we could support this session and give the students more insight about customer service within the construction industry. Higgins are very excited about this partnership with your school and look forward to working with you in the future.’