1. Making Excellence - a Standard Telephone Access checks Testing the first response

2. Making Excellence - a Standard The purpose of the checks Evidence suggests that the majority of tenants who have an issue to report or a query for their landlord, will make that first contact by telephone. How associations deal with these calls has a big impact on customer satisfaction. QHS can help you to monitor and improve your performance in this key area.

3. Making Excellence - a Standard What we do QHS will make calls to each of your advertised numbers on a regular basis We rate the responses given in terms of how long it took to answer the phone, the level of customer service and accuracy of information provided We work with associations to develop likely scenarios that will test the knowledge of your staff in key service areas An overall score is awarded and the results are instantly fed back to you

4. Making Excellence - a Standard Options available You can tailor the scenarios to test your own service standards or local offers You can purchase the testing at a frequency that suits you Associations can choose to share their results with other QHS customers and benefit from free benchmarking The written results are made available instantly and can provide great evidence for improvement teams and scrutiny panels Some customers choose to have their calls recorded on disc (staff are informed at the end of the call in this case)

5. Making Excellence - a Standard Scenario examples ‘I’m very short sighted and can’t read your customer magazine. Do you have an audio version?’ ‘Hello, I currently pay my rent weekly. What do I need to do to be able to pay it monthly?’ ‘I’m ringing on behalf of my mum who is very hard of hearing. Do your offices have hearing loops in case she wants to come in to see a neighbourhood officer?’ ‘My friend has become homeless. Is there anything you can do to help him/her?’ Our staff will re-phrase scenarios slightly and make logical follow up questions to make the call as natural and realistic as possible!

6. Making Excellence - a Standard Wendy Clarke Tenant Research Manager Office: 01260 295 826 Mobile: 07833 465 562 wendy.clarke@qhs.org.uk How to contact us If you are interested in finding out more about this service you can contact me: