Can you rely on service-level agreements

When something breaks down or goes wrong in a tenanted property, everyone will look to you to resolve the issue. Managing expectations of both landlords and tenants will become a crucial part of an agents' role in 2014, especially with a tenants' charter on the horizon.

If you're dividing property maintenance and emergency cover between a number of contractors, it can be hard to keep track of their service-level agreements. Chances are your plumber will work to different response times to your gas engineer or your glazer, meaning it can be confusing when a tenant or landlord asks 'how quickly will they contact me' or 'will the job be complete by the weekend'

Having different contractors with varying service-level agreements also makes it hard to see when standards are slipping. With the number of rental properties at one of its highest levels, tradespeople are under pressure and can sometimes bite off more than they can chew - leading to a lapse in service.
At Everything Lettings we only work to one service-level agreement that covers each and every one of our 2,000 vetted and approved tradespeople. It's an effective way of managing our property maintenance service, so our standards start and remain high. It also gives our Clients confidence when responding to anxious tenants and landlords - as there is no need for second guessing or even 'winging it'.

The Everything Lettings standard service-level agreement is as follows:

Non-emergencies or otherwise requested by tenant
20 minutes to acknowledge a new instruction
4 working hours to contact the tenant
48 hours (weekdays) to attend and survey the property
48 hours from survey to submit a report
24 hours from authorisation to book works with the tenant
Within 7 working days from authorisation to start works

Emergencies
Maximum 2 hours for an engineer to attend the site or otherwise agreed with the tenant

Everything Lettings - providing the rental industry with property maintenance plans, gas safety care programmes, boiler leasing, 24/7 365-day emergency maintenance cover, utility switching, EPCs and PAT testing.

Everything Lettings - Tel 0844 272 2442 Mobile 07970 840561 E: tellmemore@everything-lettings.co.uk W: www.everything-lettings.co.uk