Earlier this month, we launched a brand-new contact centre which is completely focussed on helping our customers with their repairs and maintenance service.
The ‘technical hub’ team will help customers with reporting new repairs, tracking ongoing repairs and any planned improvements and servicing needs.
Before taking up their posts, our new repair advisors had four weeks of training around repairs and home maintenance. They learned how our contractors work and what information our contractors need to make sure that, when they arrive at a customer’s home, they have everything they need to carry out the job the first time they visit. The team also learned how to help customers fix certain things themselves, such as repressuring a boiler, which frees up time to get more jobs done first time.
Nicole is one the 20 repairs advisors working at the Hub. She told us: “I’ve just got off a call with a gentleman who was frustrated to begin with, but once I could reassure him that I’d requested the right people to come out and I could get him some extra support, he was happy and having a laugh and joke with me. It’s nice to see that shift over a call from angry through to being relaxed and chatty.”
The opening of the hub is part of a wider plan to improve the experience customers have of reporting repairs and maintenance issues. Our Executive Director of Assets and Sustainability, Julie Wittich, said: “This is about improving our customers’ experience of their repairs service. It’s about getting it right first time, having properly trained technical people to take repairs calls and ensuring we get the right contractors out to fix the issue at the earliest opportunity."
“We’ve already helped lots of customers. When one phoned us to say she had no heating or hot water, our advisor was able to take her through how to fix the problem there and then over the phone, we didn’t even have to send a contractor out. Because the team are trained, they know exactly what to ask and what to advise and that’s absolutely brilliant. Being able to help customers as they call is better for the customer, saves time and money and it frees us up to respond quickly to more complex issues and emergencies.”
“Building a dedicated repairs team and creating the technical hub is an exciting time for Accent and one that I'm very proud to be part of.”
