Best customer service award

Winner

Berkeley Homes

Berkeley Homes won this award for a new initiative so far trialled in the Oxford and Chiltern region and now being rolled out across the company. The system includes dedicated customer care staff, commissioning of completed homes by customer service engineers, and a computerised database of remedial work. The initiative has halved the average number of defects reported by new owners in the first six weeks of occupation. “The system is very well structured,” said the judges. “The use of IT was impressive, with everything being kept on the database so that they can identify common problems. That has to be the way forward. The two-day commissioning period where staff commission the home to iron out the problems is an impressive investment.”

Finalists

The appointment of a customer care technical manager is part of Bowey Homes’ ongoing strategy to maintain high levels of customer care. The new member of staff inspects homes prior to customer handover, but after completion buyers are also given a “seven-day list” giving them the chance to report remaining faults.

Crest Nicholson

Crest Nicholson has a reputation for high levels of customer care but the company does not rest on its laurels. It has produced a “customer promise” and a guide called Building Relationships, documenting the company’s objectives and control measures. The company monitors standards by having quarterly customer satisfaction surveys carried out by an independent assessor.

Miller Homes

Science is coming to the art of customer service, with Miller Homes’ research into the subjective experience of people as they make their way through the ups and downs of the homebuying process. The company is using the results of this research to develop new ways of dealing with its customers, and is raising customer satisfaction levels in the process.

Northern Ireland Housing Executive

The Housing Executive is responding to customers in its capital improvements programme and response maintenance service. It has produced a tenants’ charter, is measuring customer satisfaction, and has a two-stage complaints system, under which dissatisfied customers can ask the chief executive to deal with their complaint.

United House

Learning from complaints is one focus of contractor United House’s customer service strategy. To give it more information about the cause of complaints, the company is implementing a centralised satisfaction and complaints reporting process. The judges made particular mention of the company’s customer satisfaction levels: “Their lowest customer satisfaction figure was 85% and it goes up to 97% – those figures are very impressive.”

Willmott Dixon/Catalyst Housing Group

The Resident’s Friend is making moving house easier for affordable housing customers. Catalyst Housing Group wanted to improve customer service and has worked with Willmott Dixon on this initiative. The Resident’s Friend is a multi-skilled operative who shows residents how to use heating systems, helps them unpack, explains the procedure for reporting problems and then returns two weeks later to check on any queries. Catalyst is so pleased with the initiative, it is rolling it out to all its new homes.