Mercian Repair Services Arranged around People?s Lives
Residents at Mercian, an innovative West Midlands housing association, can benefit from an excellent repair services planned around their lives and needs. For over 50% of its urgent and routine home repairs the association offers an appointment time suitable for the resident, and the maintenance team.
Ms Berna Hocaoglu, Mercian tenant for six years had problem with faulty electric socket at her home in Kings Norton. “I called Mercian direct repair line to report that the socket was getting hot and needed to be replaced. Straight away I was given an appointment when I was free and could be at home to have the repair done”, said Ms Hocaoglu.
“It is very easy and quick way to help tenants to deal with their repairs, in my opinion”, continues Ms. Hocaoglu. “Before the appointment system, the contractor would just show up unannounced which wasn’t convenient nor effective because I may have been out and missed them. This resulted in their wasted journey and for me meant longer waiting for the repair to be done. Being given an appointment date suitable for me has really helped me a lot”.
Mercian annually makes over 2,800 personal appointments with its tenants for routine and urgent jobs.
Karl Linder, Mercian maintenance manager commented: “Many tenants have complemented the system, and the satisfaction results amongst residents who reported a repair reflect our commitment for excellent services with over 95% of residents being satisfied with various aspects of the service. We will continue to make sure that we take our residents wishes into account and work with them to arrange repair works.”
Mercian issues over 7,500 repairs a year and prides itself that 98% of them are completed in time. This places the association in the top 25% performing housing associations in the UK for the repairs service.