Floods and teamwork
On Monday 12th July parts of London received a month’s worth of rain in one day, causing flash floods and the evacuation of homes and businesses. Revival received almost a month’s worth of claims in a couple of days, but with co-ordination from Aylesbury we have seen a fantastic response from the Revival branches, many of them sending staff from all over the UK to help out in the London area. Thank you to all of the Revival staff and management who stepped up to help so quickly – the compliments are already coming in from customers and clients.
Thank you to everyone who attended our Meet the Supplier Day. It was wonderful to catch up with suppliers and clients, share updates and plans for the group and for us to say thank you to some of our wonderful suppliers. We will be arranging more of these events as the feedback has been really positive and we think they create a strong sense of teamwork for everyone.
This month we announce the winners of our quarterly awards, profile our Account Management team and launch our inaugural Awards Lunch. We also have an update on the impact of Covid-19 and the “pingdemic”.
MA Assist Supplier of the Quarter
Congratulations to Willis Construction, winners of the MA Assist Supplier of the Quarter. The Willis team are always prepared to go the extra mile for the customer and this is reflected in their Net Promoter Score which has been 100 for the past three months. Their consistently good additional key performance indicators show that they are one of the truly consistent performers within the supply chain.
Congratulations to Craig, Mike, Jayne and the team.
Revival Branch of the Quarter
The winner of Revival Branch of the Quarter is North London. It is unusual for us to make an award for improved performance in one quarter but there has been such a sustained improvement in North London’s performance since March that when a vote was taken the result was unanimous for North London. Steve and Betty in particular have made a huge effort in getting to grips with processes, especially around the use of Pulse which is now exemplary. A recent audit showed a 25% improvement compared with an audit in March.
Well done to everyone in North London.
Virtus Surveyor of the Quarter
The Virtus surveyor of the quarter is Paul Williams. He has provided a consistently high level of service in the last quarter, meeting all performance targets and having no incidents or complaints raised against him. He is a solid and reliable surveyor who carries out the job with the minimum of fuss and the maximum result.
Congratulations Paul, and keep up the good work.
Continuing impact of Covid-19
From 19th July 2021 almost all legal restrictions in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic were lifted, and it is widely accepted that this will be accompanied by a surge in Covid-19 cases driven by the Delta variant. As a result, MA Group’s supply chains will continue to face challenges over the coming weeks as increasing numbers of their staff will need to self-isolate. This will be compounded by policyholders also needing to self-isolate.
After 16th August, double-vaccinated people will no longer need to self-isolate, however this may not improve the situation significantly for our supply chains because many of our suppliers’ staff, and clients’ customers, are relatively young and will not be double vaccinated for some time. This is also the case for many of MA Group’s operational staff. As a result we believe that the challenges will remain throughout the summer and into the autumn.
MA Group and its suppliers continue to follow all Covid-19 guidelines set out by the UK Government and relevant professional bodies, and we will continue to work hard to maintain service levels. But we would be grateful if clients could ensure that their staff understand the challenges that we are all facing and support us during the ongoing disruption caused by Covid-19. It may be necessary to manage customer’s expectation if resources become stretched.
During the first lockdown MA Group managed to keep operating, fulfilling 54% of planned works during that time. So we are confident that we will be able to manage the next stage of this pandemic successfully, with support from our clients. We will keep you fully informed of any challenges and issues as they arise.
Annual Awards Lunch
On 11th November 2021 we will be celebrating the best of Property Management in the Insurance and New Home sectors at our inaugural Annual Awards Lunch in London. It will be held at the Chartered Accountant’s Hall, One Moorgate, London, EC2R 6EA and we will be inviting clients and suppliers to join us in a well-deserved celebration of the fantastic service that our networks deliver, as demonstrated by our WORLD CLASS Net Promoter Scores.
Kevin Keegan will be hosting the awards and will present the trophies and certificates for the awards categories which are:
Best performing suppliers and franchisees based on our performance metrics and customer feedback:
If you would like to join us on 11th November, or would like to enter a nomination for the Project Management Award, please contact Sally-Ann Johnson.
New case study – Supporting vulnerable customers
This month we published a new case study showing how MA Group and its contractor, Property Services SDS, supported elderly vulnerable customers with a property claim during the Covid-19 pandemic. SDS’s communication, planning and proactive approach meant that the customers were well-looked after and the claim ran smoothly. To read the full article please CLICK HERE.
Meet our Account Management team
This month we are profiling our fantastic Account Management team. The “voices of the clients” within MA Group, this team are focussed on ensuring that we deliver an outstanding service for our clients and their customers, and act as the relationship managers between MA Group and our clients.
Andy Dakin Melissa Bridges David Shimwell Tom Brooks Ryan Scott Ryan Stevens
Andy Dakin
Andy is the surveying and validation expert on the team and has been with MA Group for five years. He has worked in the property claims industry for 13 years, 11 of those in sales and account management roles. He is Cert CII qualified and is the current President of the Insurance Institute of Bolton. Outside of the workplace he is a football addict and a keen, but distinctly average golfer (his words!). He is a doting father of a three year old boy called Ruben and his favourtite film is Top Gun.
Melissa Bridges
Melissa has been with MA Group since before the MBO in 2008, which makes her one of our longest serving members of staff (over 19 years!). She has been an account manager for 13 years and is the team’s expert on building reinstatement – what she doesn’t know about MA Assist isn’t worth knowing. Melissa is Cert CII qualified and has a Certificate in Account Management. Outside of work her two young boys keep her very busy so in her downtime she tries to relax with a good book.
David Shimwell
David has worked for MA Group for eight months but has worked in the disaster restoration industry for six years, most recently as Franchise Recruitment Manager for Rainbow. As our Client Development Director for Revival he has played a key role in the Simplify and Modernise strategy for Revival. A keen Formula 1 fan, he lives in West Lancashire where he and his partner spend many hours walking their two energetic Standard Poodles up and down the hills. He also enjoys music and going to gigs and finding new up-and-coming artists to listen to.
Tom Brooks
Tom has worked for MA Group for over seven years and was recently promoted from Account Executive to Account Manager. Having started out as a Claims Handler he has a huge amount of knowledge about the group and its clients. He has a degree in sport journalism and his interests are football, running and golf.
Ryan Scott
Another long term employee, Ryan has worked for MA Group for almost ten years. He also started out as a Claims Handler, and in his current role as Account Executive he acts as the client and technical expert within the Control Centre, responsible for the detailed anaylsis of our performance for our clients and acting as a source of knowledge and expertise for the claims management teams. He is Cert CII qualified and has achieved an accreditation for MA Dry. Outside of work he enjoys playing video games, watching the latest Marvel films/series or expanding his assortment of collectables.
Ryan Stevens
Ryan has worked for us for four years as a Claims Handler before recently becoming an Account Executive. He is currently studying for his CII qualification and has a similar role to Ryan Scott’s (it is not compulsory to be called Ryan to become an Account Exectuive by the way!). His interests include collecting limited edition and rare trainers and he has just started his own clothing brand.
MA Group MAD Awards
We are delighted to announce Shannon Cairnie as the MADest person in MA Group in June 2021.
Shannon received two shoutouts for being MAD in June – both from Supplier Performance Managers – Sandy and Christine.
Christine received the below email from Jack at Building Repair Solutions with regards to a claim:
“…Shannon was great, she called [insurers intemediary] who fobbed her off and declined a conference call, she then called Rhodar direct and obtained the answers we needed, meaning the works can proceed as planned. If you could highlight this positive feedback to Shannon’s manager I’d appreciate it.”
Sandy praised Shannon for her help in identifying and reallocating a number of claims over the past month, pushing the claims along for the customer.
This feedback is great to hear and shows Shannon is making a difference to the work carried out by our SPMs and suppliers.
