WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
Couldn’t be simpler …
… except …
- when Housing Support had to use agency
workers to stuff the outgoing mail, they would
often forget to enclose the reply envelope
- tenants would sometimes use the reply
envelope for other general council
correspondence
In both cases the council had the expense of
sending out a 2nd envelope and dealing with
unhappy tenants. This slowed down the whole process.
HERE’S THE PLAN
Coast-to-Coast Print & Design approached
Service, asking about various options to improve the
situation for the Housing Support department.
Service recognised that a key issue was to build the return envelope into the document. This would guarantee that a return envelope went out with every piece of mail, and also produce a far greater likelihood that it would only be used for the repair itself.
A small test run of 1,000 was produced so that all
elements could be checked.
The results were immediate.
- no more ‘missing’ envelopes
- 60% reduction in people using the envelope for
other council correspondence
- much faster processing of repairs
A city council in the south of England owns 13,000 houses.
One of the key issues it faces is how to keep on top of the vast number of requests from tenants for repairs and maintenance to their properties.
A number of requests are done via the web, but many tenants, particularly the older generation, don’t have
access to a computer.
REQUEST FOR REPAIR
The original paper based system worked like this.
1. Tenant reports an item for repair.
2. Housing Support office prints out the request onto an A4 sheet.
3. This is enclosed, with a reply envelope, into a C4 outer envelope and mailed out.
4. The tenant fills in the sheet and posts it backs to
Housing Support.
The new document had
to be capable of running
through desktop lasers as
well.
So, built into the 100gsm
sheet was a glued pocket,
containing a seal-easy
strip. A perforation
allowed the repair
request to be torn off,
placed in the pre-paid
return envelope for
posting back to the
Council.
