
This week we’re revisiting our Meet the Team series, where we introduce you to the members of our Customer Support Team that many of you will have spoken to during your time on HomeSwapper. We’re chatting to Head of Customer support , Lynn Darling about customer focus and the ways in which she works every day to ensure the best experience for all.
First of all, tell us about your role
As the Head of Customer Support, I have a varied role…
PART 1 – is to manage the Customer Support Team. I work alongside them on any cases that come in and am the person they come to if there are any issues that need escalating. A large part of this role is to ensure that the customer experience is the best that it can possibly be and therefore, I look at process and procedure with the team to strive for constant improvement. This way we provide all our customers with the best experience they can possibly have. I also do the statistical analysis of the cases and report back on it to the senior management team.
PART 2 – is to manage the Sales Support Team. We support the sales team to ensure that they are able to make the experience for new and existing customers as smooth and efficient as possible. We also ensure that this Is accurately reflected within our customer management system.
PART 3 – the newest element of my role is to manage the Technical Support Team. This is where cases from customers are escalated for further investigation or to be passed on to the product or development teams to be looked at and resolved. My job is to ensure that there are processes around this, so that the customer is kept up to date with information about the status of their queries.
In all parts of my role, the customer is the key focus for me.
What is it you love about the job?
What I love about my job is the customer contact element. Having worked for 25 years in hospitality, I am passionate about making sure that all customers have the best experience that they possibly can with HomeSwapper and all the other products that Housing Partners has.
As with everything in life, every day is a school day – and by that, I mean that we learn every day. At HomeSwapper and Housing Partners we try to incorporate all that we learn from customers to improve the service that we give.
Customer contact is the first impression – and hopefully the positive lasting impression that we give. In hospitality it is drilled into us to pre-empt and exceed the customer expectation; I think this should be true of all industries.
Why is HomeSwapper important for swappers?
HomeSwapper is important because it helps tenants find the home that works best for them. They may need to move for many reasons, such as the size of their home – they may need to upsize or downsize – they may need to change location for work or to be closer to family.
It’s an option to help tenants who can’t or don’t want to wait for the normal allocation process and give them access to the potential swaps that are out there.
Why does HomeSwapper matter to you?
Put simply, HomeSwapper matters to me because it helps the customer find their ideal home.
Home is where the heart is.
Our SwapTracker system allows tenants to stay fully up to date with how their mutual exchange is progressing once they’ve found a swap.
Why for you, is SwapTracker such an essential add-on to HomeSwapper?
SwapTracker is an important tool for our tenants because is makes the process of mutually exchanging a property easier. It provides transparency as to where they are in the process and – importantly – means they don’t need to contact their landlord whenever they need an update.
Do you have a favourite moment you can share from your time working on HomeSwapper?
It’s hard to pick one – so I’ve given you three!
- Learning that even through the challenges of ‘lockdown’ and having to work from home, the team are even more like a family. By that, I mean looking out for each other; building each other up when we are having inevitable ‘down’ days and genuinely caring about how each other are doing through these tough times.
- Hearing that a tenant has used one of our systems and that it has improved some part of their life. Whether that’s a homeless person no longer being homeless, and the small part that our Housing Jigsaw system has played in that, or that somebody has exchanged their home and found their ‘forever’ home via HomeSwapper, with the swap managed through SwapTracker.
- Receiving the many positive bits of feedback that I get about my team. They all work extremely hard and all genuinely want to help the landlords and tenants that they come into contact with. They do their utmost to deliver the best service they can and exceed the expectations of our customers.
The HomeSwapper Customer Support team are always on hand to give advice and tips on how to get the most from HomeSwapper. They deal with Swappers every day and have a unique insight and view on the thousands of successful swaps that take place on HomeSwapper.