Contractor Multi-Contact Model

The demands facing contractors within housing repairs are becoming more and more challenging.

Operating efficiently is imperative, but meeting customer needs around appointments, visibility and joined up working is becoming as important when bidding for new work. Every contracting organisation that has implemented OPTI-TIME has reported significant productivity improvements – measurably more jobs per day per operative resulting in fewer operatives being needed per area.

Diagram

If partnering is to be successful, it is essential that the central conflict in the relationship is addressed and not simply worked around.

From the perspective of a contractor, be it a company or an individual, it is clear that if the client call centre staff make their appointments, and appoint every internal repair, then this will introduce problems.

The person making the appointment doesn’t know the operatives, isn’t technical, may not know the areas well and won’t be able to allow for material requirements. Even more acutely, there is no way that the call centre can make seven appointments for a tradesman in a day, expect them all to be kept and expect the operatives to be flexible enough to stay and complete jobs that need longer than expected.

On the other side of the equation however is the customer. If someone is reporting a repair and has to wait in for the operative, they want to know when someone is coming, they want it to be convenient and more than anything, they want the repair finished.

The bottom line is that the customer requirement is non negotiable, so the issue is how to reconcile this to the logical facts presented above.

OPTI-TIME directly addresses this problem.

Contractors use OPTI-TIME to maintain their staff availability and rules about who can do what work, when appointments can be made and how long is needed. The call centre staff then gain direct access to the operatives’ diaries – not approximated slots, the real live diaries – through OPTI-TIME’s Web Based appointment system.

OPTI-TIME has been specifically designed to meet the requirements of this environment. Key features include;

  • Single Web Based appointment interface, calls can be logged in any client’s housing system which integrates directly and in real time to the central OPTI-TIME system
  • Single OPTI-TIME system gives business wide visibility of resources, productivity and KPIs
  • Every major Housing System supplier offers an off the shelf OPTI-TIME interface
  • Client is given access to the contractor’s ‘Web Based Appointment Portal’ giving them a formal appointment system
  • New contracts can be set up quickly and easily
  • Intelligent geography management across areas
  • Scheduling rules can be established separately for each contract
  • Resources can be dedicated or shared between contracts / areas based on workload
  • Customer messaging enabled across the platform, all messages can be controlled and configured by contract.