Accent Nene Strengthens Customer Service

Published by Mike Holland for Accent Nene in Housing

Peterborough-based housing association Accent Nene has strengthened its customer services in response to feedback from the people who use them.

Accent Nene has set up new customer service team and appointed a new customer services coordinator.

The customer service team was restructured in response to comments made by Accent Nene residents. A new customer services coordinator has been appointed to oversee the extensive training programme in customer service excellence.

Accent Nene has introduced an automated message system so that customers can select to speak directly to the repairs team or to the customer services team who aim to deal with 90 per cent of housing enquiries as the first point of contact.

A monitoring system has been established to ensure that all the departments within Accent Nene are meeting the requirements of the organisation’s customer charter, which promises high levels of service. Both incoming calls and post are monitored to assess the speed of response to residents’ queries.

Under the charter Accent Nene undertakes to respond to telephone queries within 24 hours and to provide answers to written postal queries within ten working days. The customer service team monitors both the incoming queries and the responses to ensure that these targets are being met.

New customer services coordinator Rosie Tomaselli explained: “Our primary aim as a first point of contact is to ensure that calls are answered within four rings. Residents have been able to get through more easily because we have more staff able to answer their calls and deal with their queries.”

The Customer Services team has been ‘mystery shopped’ by the Quality Housing Service and has received accredited excellence in customer service.

Rosie Tomaselli said: “Customer services staff have undergone training to enable them to take on more housing duties in support of the housing team.

“We are also working on targets to reduce void times – the period when a property is empty – and improve the void process.

“A system of cross training with other departments, including housing and sheltered schemes, has also been introduced. This has made the customer service role a more varied one than it had been in the past.

“It is important that the team has a more in-depth knowledge of other departments so that they are able to answer queries with understanding, confidence and authority.

“Externally the response to our restructuring has been excellent. The Best Value Link residents group feedback has been very positive.”

The Best Value Link is a group of interested residents from different areas who are consulted on current issues and policy changes which directly affect services. The group reviews the cost effectiveness of the service provided by Accent Nene and makes improvement suggestions.