Our Relationship Team is the first point of contact for all our Red Kite customers – whether the contact is via our website, social media, emails or our phones. If you’ve got in touch with us before then chances are you’ve talked to one of them!
But what is a normal workday like for someone in our Relationship team? We talked to Lyndsey, who is one of our senior relationship advisors here at Red Kite, about the work that she does.
Let’s start from the top! How does your day normally start?
Well, our team makes sure we’re here at the offices for 8:30, then set our systems up ready for 8:45. But we don’t just sit waiting for a call to come in – we dive straight into catching up on all the different tasks that have come in since last night.
This can be tasks like Facebook comments, emails, feedback through our website... basically all of the ways customers can get in touch with us 24 hours a day.
We then assign non –telephony tasks to different members of the team. We try to make sure we divide these evenly, so that all the queries we receive get an equal amount of attention from us. Whoever takes on that task then owns it from start to finish.
So that person then follows that query all the way to the end?
Yes! No matter a customer gets in touch with us about, the person in our team who owns that query then follows that through from beginning to end. Of course, it’s not possible to always answer everything first time, but it’s about taking ownership of the enquiries from start to finish whilst keeping the customer in the loop at all times..
So you’ll do your best to answer any questions first time then?
Absolutely. But when something can’t be answered first time, the person who is managing that enquiry is going to follow you through the whole process and be the person you talk to.
We always joke that we’re like detectives, people contact us with ‘cases’ that need to be solved – and there’s nothing more satisfying than helping to solve a great case!
And you’ll keep the customer informed of what’s going on?
Of course! No matter how long it takes for us to resolve an issue, we will do our best to keep the customer in the loop. Depending on the query, there might be multiple people involved which we need to liaise with. We chase up the right people so that you don’t have to!
There are lots of other things that happen behind the scenes that our customers don’t see, so even if we can’t find the answer right away it’s good to know what progress is being made!
Sounds like it’s possible to get quite attached then!
Oh for sure, but it just makes it so much more rewarding when we can see how happy people are after we’ve helped them.
For instance last week a customer phoned up in the morning because their shower was broken – they were disabled and wouldn’t have been able to cope without it. I contacted Axis, who had a cancelled job that day which meant it was possible for them to work on this shower instead. They were able to quickly reschedule and sourced a brand new shower from their supplier which they installed that same day. The customer then called up at the end of the day to let us know how thankful he was!
You guys do stop to eat something right?
We do, we’ve got a lunch rota which means that there’s always someone there if you get in touch with us. We make sure that everything that has happened in the morning is logged on the system before we go to lunch. This means that if a customer calls back about something they contacted us for in the morning, Another relationship advisor will be able to handle their query.
So how many times would you say your team gets contacted a day?
Right now I’d say we’re getting about 300 calls a day, about 430 emails, 20 web chat communications and 30 Facebook interactions per week. Monday and Wednesday afternoon are our busiest times by far but by Friday it quietens down.
We sit right by the main reception too, meaning we’re going to be who you see if you come into our offices!
What kind of things can your team help with?
Pretty much anything! That’s why we’re the first point of contact, because either we can help you or signpost you in the right direction. If we can’t help you with something there and then, we’ll work to make sure your query is resolved.
For example, if it’s the first time you’re letting us know about a repair, we can get it on the system and book that in for you. We can also help with rent payments.
Say if one of our contractors visits your home and says you need a new boiler or that they’ll have to come back later, while we can’t book in that follow up repair, we can find out when the contractor has the work planned for you and if you need to contact the contractor for any reason, we can do that for you too.
Our main job is to be the middle man that follows you through the whole process. So instead of talking to 5 different people you only speak to one.
What’s the biggest benefit of being able to talk to a relationship advisor?
There’s always going to be someone in our team available to talk to you, even if we’re on lunch someone else will be able to deal with your enquiry!
Imagine if you had an issue that involved three different people here at Red Kite; Because the work most of our staff do involves being out and about in the community, and they are not always available in the office, when they do come back in, we’re able to talk to them directly.
How long does it normally take a ‘case’ to be solved then?
It varies! Sometimes we can solve a problem quickly within 5 -10 minutes on average. But sometimes we may not have all information to hand and we have to talk to multiple people; it can take longer than that. But no matter how long it takes, through the whole process we’ll do our best to contact you back to keep you updated.
That’s your morning and the kind of thing you deal with day-to-day, but what’s the end of your day like?
The afternoon is when we’re working catching up on finding resolutions for everything that came in through the day that we were unable to resolve first time. This means wrapping up tasks or updating our customers on progress we’ve made in resolving complex queries. Anything unresolved is flagged to chase up the following morning.
It’s at 5:15 that we get ready to shut down for the day. We all log off the phones once we’ve finished talking to whoever we’ve got on the phone. We don’t just hang up once the clock hits 5:15!
And of course, sometimes we get a request that needs to be resolved that same day, so we will work past our log off time to make sure those cases are seen through to completion. And once that’s done, we all go home!
Awesome! Well, I’ll let you get back to work, but thanks for giving me a better idea of the kind of things your team does day to day.
Happy to help!
If you want to get in touch with our Relationship team for anything at all, you can find all ways to contact us on our ‘Contact Us’ page.