Multi-Contractor Model

Increasingly, Housing Organisations using external contractors are choosing to provide a central appointment system to ensure their customers receive a consistent service, irrespective of the partner undertaking the repair or other visit.

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, call handler not required to know which contractor should do the work
  • Independent OPTI-TIME configurations for each contractor, 100% secure, each tailored to meet that contractor’s working practices
  • Independent integration gateway for each contractor, allowing OPTI-TIME to be integrated with multiple different job management and mobile data systems
  • Appointment interface can be configured to integrate with an external OPTI-TIME system, i.e. one already operated by a contractor
  • Multiple OPTI-TIME configurations can reside on the client network, each integrating to a separate external job management and or mobile system
  • Customer messaging enabled across the platform, all messages can be controlled and configured by contract. For example, contractor A may not have a mobile solution, so is unable to send the on-route message, contractor B does choose to send this message. All confirmation and reminder messages include contract specific text, contact numbers.