Appointment-booking process improved

A new ‘phone popping’ system is helping The Window Company (Contracts) to improve its service to clients in the social housing sector.

The system is similar to the type used by doctors, schools and restaurants to help them identify patients, parents and diners when they call.

When a resident contacts The Window Company (Contracts) at its HQ in Chelmsford, Essex, the person answering the phone can not only greet them by name, but also instantly see their address and exactly what work is required at their property. This reassures the resident that they are dealing with a professional and efficient operation, and improves the appointment-booking process.

The installer has joined forces with two local SMEs to deliver the telecoms system in record time and on budget. The consultants on the project were Ontraq, who already provide IT support to The Window Company (Contracts), and the database interface was created by Metier.

David Thornton, chair at The Window Company (Contracts), said: “We pride ourselves on providing a flexible, efficient service to our clients, without any of the unwieldy constraints that sometimes come from dealing with a big national company. That’s what we look for in our suppliers too and we particularly value the fact that we can make changes and add features to our system with just one simple call to Metier.”

Katie Thornton, director of compliance and administration at The Window Company (Contracts), said: “We can give a more personalised service to residents when they phone to book their survey or installation and save several seconds on every call because we don’t have to manually interrogate the database. With more than 10,000 resident records now stored on our system, those seconds very quickly add up.”