Stafford and Rural Homes

July 16, 2008

Stafford and Rural Homes has delivered another of its commitments to ensure that customers can access services easily and at minimum cost, by installing freephone numbers for its Customer Services and Care and Support call centres.

Customers using landlines can now contact the Customer Services Centre, to report repairs, apply for housing, pay their rent and much, much more for FREE on 0800 111 4554.

The Care and Support team, handling calls about sheltered and Warden linked housing and lifeline and telecare customers, can be contacted on
0800 111 4334.

In another move to demonstrate how important customer views are to its drive to continuously improve, the organisation has implemented customer satisfaction surveys. Customers visiting The Rurals or the shops personally can complete a short survey on a electronic panel. Those telephoning will complete a short survey after the call is completed. Even the web site features “Smileys” which allow customers to rate each page they have accessed on the site and leave comments about how it could be improved.

Karen Armitage, Chief Executive said “We are delighted to have implemented the freephone service for our call centres. Customers can contact us without worrying about the cost of the call and we can ensure that all the information we need to carry out repairs and to complete our Fair Treatment survey is collected from customers without increasing their telephone bills. The survey system is a major step forward in assessing how we perform at the sharp end and I would urge all customers, whether visiting us personally, telephoning or accessing the web site, to complete the survey and help us improve. Feedback will be posted on the web site, in our newsletters and on the screens at The Rurals and in the shops.”