Our Promise

At Your Service

These are the standards of services that you can expect to receive from us. We will constantly strive to provide you with a service that exceeds these standards.

Help and information

• Our staff will be friendly, polite, helpful and will listen to your concerns.
• Our staff will dress smartly and wear a badge to confirm their identity.
• Our staff will give their names when you make an enquiry.
• We will set high standards in everything we do.
• You will receive a clear explanation as to what can be done to help you and what will happen next about your enquiry.
• You won’t wait more than 5 minutes to see our receptionist.
• You will be seen within 10 minutes if you have an appointment and 20 minutes if you don’t. If there’s a delay, we will tell you.
• If you want us to visit you at home, we will do so within 3 working days and arrange a suitable appointment with you.
• If we call at your home and you are out, we will leave a card telling you who called and how to get in touch.
• We will answer your phone call within 6 rings.
• We will take a message if you telephone some one who is not available. We will make sure they ring you back as soon as possible.
• We will answer letters within 7 working days.
• We will give you useful information about our service through leaflets that are easy to understand. We can provide our leaflets in a range of languages, large print, Braille or on audiotape.
• We will produce a newsletter for tenants and leaseholders every 4 months.

Equality and access to service

• We will treat your enquiry with strict confidentiality.
• We will offer you a private interview if you want to discuss your enquiry confidentially.
• You will be dealt with fairly and impartially.
• We will treat you as we would expect to be treated ourselves.
• We will give all our customers the same high standard of service.
• We will provide an interpretation service for customers who don’t speak English.
• We can provide all our information leaflets in a range of languages or large print, and in Braille or on audiotape.
• We will not discriminate unlawfully against anyone regardless of age, disability, sex, race, religion or sexual orientation.
• We will make sure that all our offices conform to all current regulations on accessibility for disabled people.
• We will provide induction loops at all our offices.
• We will recognise the needs of different individuals and communities.

Quality of service

• We will set clear standards that you can expect to receive from us in consultation with our customers.
• We will review our standards regularly to ensure they meet the needs of our customers.
• We will monitor these standards through surveys, and work with customers to inspect parts of our service and carry out ‘mystery shopping’ on our behalf.
• We will conduct regular customer satisfaction surveys for specific parts of our service.
• We will listen, consult and respect your views, welcoming suggestions on how we can improve our service.
• We will feed back to our customers the results of surveys and the action we have taken to improve our service.
• When things go wrong we will do our best to put them right as quickly as possible.

In return we request you to do the following things:

• Be polite when speaking to our staff.
• Not use abusive or aggressive behaviour. It is unfair to our staff and to other customers and is a breach of your tenancy agreement.
• Provide the information we ask for when we ask for it; this will help us to help you.
• Keep any appointment we make with you or inform us if you wish to re-arrange it. This also helps us keep appointments with other customers.
• Be patient. There are times when we are very busy. We will always try to keep waiting times to a minimum.
• Tell us if you are not happy with the service you have received.
• Tell us if our service has been better than you expected.

Information Leaflet

We have produce an information leaflet "At your Service" which you can view here. You may find this useful.

Further Information

You can obtain further information from the following:

Blyth Valley Housing, Dinsdale House, 75 Marine Terrace, Blyth NE24 2LN.

Telephone: 01670 542422 or 01670 542091

Typetalk service prefix number 18001

 EMail: Service Standards