Kier Stoke and Stoke-on-Trent City Council were highly commended at the national British Building Maintenance Awards.

The partnership was recognised and praised for its project 'Reigniting the Customer Experience', which has improved the way local residents receive repair and maintenance services.

The commendation was given after consultant David Phythian, representing the Association of British Engineers, spent a day with Kier Stoke to conduct an in-depth analysis of its service. He also gained a deeper understanding of the ‘systems thinking’ review, embraced jointly by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, to ensure the responsive repairs service meets the needs of the customer in completing repairs at a convenient time.

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David spent part of his visit with Stoke-on-Call, the department which collects the initial call demand from the customer; he then spent the larger part of his time in Kier Stoke’s Resource Control where Kier manager Martin Heath and Stoke-on-Trent City Council control manager, Tony Philips, guided him through the day-to-day processes in place.

Kier Stoke launched its dedicated call centre in January 2011, which has led to reduced call waiting times for residents to an average of just one minute, and it now takes an average of only three minutes for the initial call to be logged. The changes introduced improved performance dramatically; the average repair on a social housing property is now undertaken in four days (97 hours) and, on average, customers now rate the service as 9.9 when asked for a score out of 10.

Kier regional managing director, David Mawson, said: "We are delighted to have received a commendation for our customer-focused project, which has seen some excellent results. This is further testament to our working partnership with Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which is designed to deliver an unsurpassed service to our local tenants."

(CD)