The service the public enjoys from roadside assistance has set high expectations for what buyers expect from housebuilders. But there is one call-out service with obvious similarities.
The problem with housebuyers is that they all make maintenance requests at the same time: 9-11am, Monday the favourite. The customer care manager ends up reacting to phone traffic rather than commissioning repairs. Callers that don’t quickly get through start to get grumpy while the ones that don’t get through...

Aon Home Assistance likes to play up how it can handle a rush - 2785 call-outs processed on 29 December 1998 after the storms. It also likes to point out how the service is 24 hour - a 2am emergency is dealt with just as at 2pm. The emergency call team operates from the same room in Willenhall as the AA’s roadside service and to similar service standards - LED screens flash out data such as average number of seconds to call pick up. The proximity of the self-styled “nation’s fourth emergency service” is due to its origin as AA Home Start - US insurer Aon bought the network.

The system was drawn up as an added-value service to household insurance - a £25 premium buys homeowners 24-hour cover. Now Aon is marketing it for about £15 a home as a way for housebuilders to manage their two-year warranty commitment, with Crest, Laing and Wimpey first to shift the burden. Housebuilders either give Aon a list of preferred contractors which Aon manages or if the housebuilder wants subcontractors building rather than repairing, Aon dispatches one from its live list of 1000 and the housebuilder recharges its subby.

Aon points out its contractors score less than 2% complaints - very favourable against Citizens Advice Bureau figures showing more than 1 in 10 is the average. Aon says the volume of work it offers help it hook the best and make them honour commitments - even for 2am emergencies.

Source

Building Homes