Access Strategy

We aim to:

  • Make sure that customers can contact us or access our services as and when they need to and in a way most suitable to their needs.  
  • Increase customer satisfaction with our service delivery.

Resident involvement »

We will involve residents in the decision making process and in developing services in order to accurately reflect what they need and want from us.

Access channels

We recognise that it is important that customers are easily able to access our services in the way that suits them.  We provide a range of access options to include:

  • Contacting us by telephone with 24 hour access for emergency contacts. 
  • Contacting us in person in offices or at a resident’s home or at meetings of residents in the community.  
  • Contacting us by text, fax, letter or email. 
  • Online via our Website. 
  • Local surgeries.

We will:

  • Open our Bridport Office during the lunch hour. 
  • Review the opening times of our Sherborne Office to accommodate staying open longer.  
  • Consider closing Baileys, our Dorchester town office and making better use of our Head Office location at Hollands House.   
  • Close our poorly attended surgeries. 
  • Consider the introduction of a mobile office with a programmed route of locations that is fully publicised to residents. 
  • Carry out a pilot to extend the opening hours of our repairs call centre and income management service into the evenings or Saturdays or both.  
  • Improve facilities at Hollands House for customers including a disabled toilet and private interviewing facilities. 
  • Promote and encourage residents to use ‘self-service’ on our website. 
  • Ensure that our services are accessible to everyone and work within our Equality and Diversity Policy.

Continuous improvement

To ensure we are constantly looking to improve services we will:

  • Ensure that we have comprehensive resident profile information that is up to date and accessible to staff. 
  • Identify customers who are not accessing the service to find out why, and then take appropriate action to remove barriers to access. 
  • Provide arrangements for those not so easily able to access services by making special arrangements such as home visits. 
  • Benchmark our performance with other housing providers to understand how we compare with our peers.

Information and publicity

We will ensure that our customers are aware of the services available and how to access them by providing clear and accessible information on notice boards, in the tenancy handbook, on the website and in newsletters.

 

To download the full version of our access strategy please click here »