The importance of a defect management system

James Farrell, CEO of clixifix, explains why defect management is a vital, but often overlooked, process.

Surprisingly, what we see very frequently with construction companies is the lack of a clear defect management process. With the end goal for any organisation being high customer satisfaction, it is crucial to outline the defect management process as early as possible in order to set expectations from the outset.

Here are our five major steps in a defect management process.

Prevention

Arrange a pre-handover meeting to run through your plans for the handover day and ensure that all parties are 100% happy with this approach. Handover day can be a frantic experience if not managed correctly. Follow your pre-agreed procedures and ensure all paperwork is completed accordingly with appropriate signatures.

Aim to finish with zero items on handover.

Defects will always exist, it’s part and parcel of the process, however, simple internal quality inspection procedures leading up to handover day can significantly reduce these.

Early Detection

Be proud to be pedantic. Take the time to inspect each property. Agreeing with all parties involved that there are no issues with the new home on handover will prove extremely beneficial if in a couple of weeks’ time, the resident has reported numerous defects with kitchen sinks, sanitary ware, damaged kitchen units etc.

Having the ability to refer to the signed handover documents will prove invaluable if trying to prove that the resident has damaged items in their new home.

Minimising Impact

Keep it simple. In my experience, residents won’t read a vast homeowner manual; they will prefer simply to telephone their registered provider if they have queries or repairs.

Produce clear, concise, simpler user guides with diagrams. Laminate these guides and attach to the inside of kitchen cupboards. Explore the possibility of producing a short film of common maintenance tips and emergency actions, for example, how to re-pressurise the central heating system.

Provide your client with clear details on your customer care approach. If you have a system in place outline the steps to reporting issues in clear, simple language.

Resolution

To gauge the success of a team, it’s important to identify what constitutes success in the eyes of your homeowners. From the homeowner’s perspective, all that they care about is whether their issue has been recognised and how long it is going to take to resolve.

How long does it take your team (on average) to respond to a support query? This is not how long it takes to resolve the query, simply the period between a homeowner submitting a ticket and the first contact from one of your operatives. The sooner a homeowner is responded to, the more likely they are to feel as though they are a valued customer.

Process improvement.

Take a step back. Feedback your analysis of the most common defects (on a quarterly basis) to your client – so both parties can learn from it. For example, if they are receiving a lot of reports from residents on issues with central heating and topping up boilers, maybe the handover wasn’t as clear or comprehensive as it should have been.

If your company is asked to agree to response times that you know your business can’t cope with due to lack of resource or geography, retain the services of a specialist multi-skilled response team to support your out of office hours reported items.

For a defect management process to be effective it is important that all your stakeholders understand how it works.

By implementing a stringent process, it ensures all of your team are on the same page when it comes to after care. This in turn will boost your customer satisfaction scores and leave your customers feeling happy.

James Farrell is CEO of clixifix. clixifix is one of the UK’s fastest growing ConTech and PropTech firms in the UK. The Software as a Service business provides housing developers and their customers with a straightforward, cloud-based platform which tracks the progress of repairs and helps speed up the reporting process, ultimately leading to significantly lower costs and increased customer satisfaction.

Founded in 1999 by Andy Hill, Hill Group UK delivers both private sale and affordable homes in London and the South East of England.?

Their vision is to be the leading, most trusted provider of distinctive, quality new homes in the UK.

Founded in 1999 by Andy Hill, Hill Group UK delivers both private sale and affordable homes in London and the South East of England.?

Their vision is to be the leading, most trusted provider of distinctive, quality new homes in the UK.

This is their story. ????