Contact Centre Resident Visit

Resident Bob Skipp attends his local Resident Area Panel meetings and was given the chance to visit the Contact Centre in Bromley. He found it a real eye-opener. Here, in his own words, is what he experienced:

“My first impression was the size! When you consider that Affinity Sutton has over 50,000 homes, I expected floors full of people, frantic calls, and rushing up and down waving sheets of paper about. How wrong can one be? It was quite a large office block, but the Contact Centre only occupied one floor.

There was no rushing around; instead there were lots of people calmly answering phones and quietly jotting down notes, transferring their contacts to the different departments that each caller wanted.

The Contact Centre is divided into two sections: one that deals with Affinity Sutton housing enquiries and the other section deals with CBS repair enquiries. I was there early afternoon on what they called one of their quiet days and Affinity Sutton had answered over a thousand calls, whereas CBS had answered just over eight hundred. Both their response times were at 99%.

I was allowed to sit in on a few calls (with the caller’s consent). Firstly I sat with Paul, who took me through all the different types of training. I was surprised how thorough this was. The calls varied immensely, from someone wanting to get their first home with Affinity Sutton to a man whose father had passed away and was ringing in to help his mother with their joint tenancy. I was very impressed with Paul’s compassion when he handled this caller.

Then over to CBS, where I was with Leanne. Her contacts were very different. She received calls from the residents that had problems, and we all know what they can be like. These varied from a young lady who had a couple of smoke detectors fitted that went off for no reason, to an irate young man who had been promised the glazier would be round that day but had not turned up. Leanne handled every call with the upmost tact and sincerity.

So having seen it in action, I for one will not knock the Contact Centre like many of us do.”

Bob Skipp