A bright blue future!
As you no doubt know, the big news this month is our acquisition of Chem-Dry U.K. Limited, now rebranded to Revival Blue. We are delighted to welcome the Revival Blue staff and suppliers to the MA Group family. It’s been a tough couple of weeks getting the business transitioned across to MA Group, but we are looking forward to a bright, blue future together.
We also have news on some IT development for Virtus and the usual staff news and MAD announcements.
As usual, there won’t be a newsletter in December, so we hope you all have a marvellous festive period and we look forward to working with you all in 2023.
Revival Blue
MA Group has acquired the entire share capital of Chem-Dry U.K. Limited through its subsidiary The Revival Group Limited. The acquisition of Chem-Dry U.K. will complement MA Group’s existing disaster management services provided via Revival, which MA Group acquired in 2019, adding scale and expertise to its overall market offering.
Chem-Dry U.K. Limited is the disaster management arm of Chem-Dry and is separate to Chem-Dry Franchising Limited (CDF), a company that provides textile cleaning services across the UK.
Chem-Dry U.K. has been rebranded to Revival Blue and its current franchisees are transitioning their disaster management services to a new ‘Licensed Model’ under the leadership of MA Group.
This allows MA Group to merge the capacity of the existing Revival network with the additional Revival Blue capacity to create a market leading proposition for UK-wide fire, flood and escape of water disaster management. The directors of MA Group believe that combining Revival’s technical expertise and customer service excellence with Revival Blue’s extensive network of trained technicians will bring “a better way” to the disaster management sector.
With the introduction of TREVOR, MA Group‘s predictive digital technology that puts the science back into drying, and its newly-expanded nationwide disaster restoration network MA Group is challenging the status quo and adding value to its clients and their customers.
This is an exciting time for MA Group and its new Revival Blue colleagues. The comprehensive support from MA Group’s clients demonstrates the collaboration and mutual trust that has developed over decades, for which we are very grateful.
New staff
We are delighted to announce that Haley Elsden has joined MA Group. She is very well-known and well-respected in our industry and we think she is a fabulous addition to our senior management team.
As Client Development Director she will be leading our Sales and Account Management team and supporting the continual growth of the group.
We have two other new faces thanks to the acquisition of Chem-Dry U.K.
Katie Thane is now part of the MA Group Sales and Account Management team. She has worked for Chem-Dry for 15 years and prior to that worked in the loss adjusting industry. She is ACII qualified and has a wealth of valuable experience in the restoration industry.
Alan Chamberlain has joined the Supply Chain Management team as Supplier Performance Manager. He has many years of experience in the restoration industry too and is now helping to manage the Revival Blue supply chain the MA way.
Virtus automation project
We’re very happy to announce that the next stage of automation on Virtus is now complete!
Our systems now open a claim, assign a surveyor and meet our contact SLAs with no manual intervention by claims handlers.
When an instruction is emailed into us by the insurer our OCR software reads the instruction and automatically creates the claim in our claims management system, Pulse. Pulse will then automatically:
The work done so far is estimated to save 125 working days per year of basic admin, creating time for our claim handlers to focus on the value-added work that needs real thought and experience. This is particularly necessary during surge times.
The next stage of the project will be automation of the appointment booking, reporting, and closing processes to make Virtus claims management even more efficient, quick and effective.
MA Group Annual Awards lunch postponed
We were very disappointed to have to postpone our Annual Awards lunch until 17th January 2023. Unfortunately nationwide rail and London underground strikes were planned for our original date of 3rd November, and as people are travelling from all over the country we knew that it would be really difficult for them to attend that day.
Venue details and timings remain the same, as per the original invitations sent out. If you are unable to attend on this new date, please contact Sally-Ann Johnson to let her know.
And if you couldn’t make the original date of 3rd November but can now make the 17th January 2023 please let Sally-Ann know too.
MA Group MAD Awards
We are delighted to announce that we had two MAD employees in October – Danielle Potter and Leigh Bell. They both demonstrated their ability to manage intricate claims in a sensitive way, especially when vulnerable customers are involved, and a proactive and positive approach towards moving claims along.
Danielle had two MAD announements. The first was for a claim where she ensured that works got underway quickly at a community centre that run activities for the elderly, so that the hall can be used over the Christmas period.
Danielle’s second recognition was for a claim by a customer with a disabled husband. Their home had been damaged by a burst pipe, and an imminent, long-awaited holiday was at risk while this claim was ongoing. Danielle took control of the situation and worked with the MA Assist suppliers to ensure works started swiftly. Danielle followed the claim through to completion meaning that the customer and her family could still go away on holiday.
Leigh has been dealing with a claim where the customer had no heating or hot water, and a vulnerable child suffering from an auto-immune disease. With half term looming Leigh worked closely with the insurer to make specific arrangements for appropriate alternative accommodation, and then with the Revival branch and the MA Assist suppliers to ensure the works were completed to time.
Well done to Danielle and Leigh.
