LHA-ASRA’s call centre was recently recognised as one of the top 50 in the UK for customer service after it came 35th in the UK’s biggest ever call-centre benchmarking exercise, conducted by independent market researchers GfK NOP.
LHA-ASRA received the award at a reception in London at the end of 2009, hosted by TV presenter and journalist Claudia Winkleman.
Based at the group’s headquarters in Leicester, LHA-ASRA’s customer contact centre provides core customer services including repairs reporting, Homechoice applications, rent payments and general queries. The contact centre employs 41 staff and is the first point of contact for tenants in LHA-ASRA’s 11,000 homes across Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and Greater London.
It is complemented by Service 24 which provides a 24-hour, 365 days a year telecare alarm monitoring system for vulnerable or older people. Its other core services include daily tenant check calls, a warden visiting service, lone worker monitoring, support calls and out of hours emergency repairs.
Michaela Marcham, head of customer services, LHA-ASRA, said, “This is an exciting accolade which reflects our commitment to providing our customers with a first-class experience. We are very proud to be recognised as one of the top 50 call centres nationally, and were only 4 per cent off reaching the top 10.”
GfK NOP made 16,800 mystery shopper enquiries to call centres across the county covering retail and distribution, financial services and insurance, telecoms and utilities, the public sector, and entertainment, leisure and travel. Each call centre was rated against over 50 criteria across five areas of service – timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalised service.
