ALHCO has been carrying out Mendip Housing Limited’s (MHL) Gas Servicing since October 2004.

When ALHCO began working with MHL we inherited 250 properties that were out of date, in April 2007 there was one out of date service for which MHL were taking legal action against the tenant.

Alongside ALHCO’s close relationship with MHL the following elements of our excellent servicing schedule have made this possible:

• An appointment letter is sent to tenants four weeks before to give them the opportunity to change it if it is not convenient;

• All properties are planned on a 44 week cycle so if there are any initial no accesses there are still 8 weeks to ensure that they are done before they become out of date;

• In the event of a no access, we leave a missed appointment card. If there has been no contact from the tenant within 7 days, a recorded letter is sent prompting the tenant to make a new appointment;

• If a further 7 days pass with no contact from the tenant, we pass it back to MHL who begin the process of sending recorded legal letters.

Dale Macey, ALHCO’s Operational Supervisor, is dedicated to this contract. Dale believes that the close working relationship he and his colleagues have with MHL is the main contributing factor to the success of the contract. He says “we work very closely with Mendip Housing and have a good relationship exchanging data and talking on a daily basis”.

Lorraine Hancock at MHL also puts the success down to “the extremely good relationship and team work between ALHCO and MHL”.

We are also very pleased with our attached Key Performance Indicator results for MHL; for example, the percentage of orders completed within time in February 2007 was 99%.

One of our strengths of which we are most proud is our ability to build co-operative and proactive relationships with our clients that are based on mutual trust. This is a shining example of how strong relationships contribute to our achievements in our service delivery.