Posted on 17 June 2022
Thank you to all our customers who have given their feedback, helping us choose new suppliers for our Estate Services.
We’re now in full swing with the process, carefully shaping your requirements before we then advertise the contracts for different companies to bid on. Our customers are an essential part of this process, ensuring that we’re selecting contractors that are right for everyone.
Thanks to email surveys, our Customers Connect Conference, and with the help of Hyde’s Customer Involvement team, we now have a group of over 150 customers willing to be part of the process. And, there is plenty to do - the Estate Services contracts are huge and renewing them all is a big job.
Here are some of the things our volunteer customers will be helping with.
The Service Design Group
This group reviews the changes we’ve made in our contract specifications following your feedback. The specification is everything we expect the contractor to do if they win the contract. As a group, we’ll then discuss any other changes that our customers in this group feel will improve the service.
The Tender Creations Forum
This forum will shape the questions that we’ll ask at the interview stage of the process to make sure we get the answers that are most important to customers.
Internal site visits
Potential contractors will visit some of our sites to see examples of the estates they’ll be looking after. This helps them understand the expectations we have, and from there, they can then create their offer. Customers will join us during these visits.
External site visits
This is where customers will join us to visit non-Hyde sites that the potential contractors already look after, so we can see how they work. This will also involve a pre-meeting to discuss what we’re looking for, and go through the aspects that are most important to our customers.
Scoring the tenders
We’ll run a session with customers and Hyde colleagues to talk about how we’ll be scoring the bidders, and what we should consider to be most important. After that, customers will be asked to help us score the bids we receive. We’ll be flexible with timings to make sure it’s convenient for anyone who wants to get involved.
Contractor interviews
Customers will have helped us shape the questions for the interviews. This is where we’ll actually be asking those questions and interviewing the people who want to carry out our Estate Services. Customers will be briefed, and we’ll talk about what is most important to them.
How you can get involved
Our large group of customer volunteers are certainly going to busy. But, there is still a chance to have your say. You’ll receive a Section 20 notice through the post, with a different ’lots’ like window cleaning or gardening. You can then make observations by replying to the Section 20. All the important details like cost and how to reply, will be on the front page, so keep your eyes peeled for the notice through your door, and we look forward to hearing what you have to say.
There are plenty of ways to get involved with our Customer Involvement team so why not take a look and sign up today.