McCarthy and Stone local partnership offers customer service with a personal touch in Southend On Sea

The quest to provide homeowners with the ultimate customer service experience has no limits for the UKs leading retirement housebuilder, McCarthy and Stone, as the company has partnered with Southend-on-Sea customer care specialist support and contact centre, Ventrica.

The partnership will extend the number of local jobs already created for local contractors at the McCarthy & Stone Centenary Place development located on Southchurch Boulevard. The partnership with Ventrica will now also create up to 12 new permanent customer service operations jobs for local people in its Southend head office, and will support the business’s founding principles to provide a viable, sustainable alternative for retirees.

Ventrica will provide dedicated, bespoke customer service and sales enquiries support for all first stage enquiries nationwide for McCarthy and Stone. The new service will offer wider communications channels through a multichannel customer experience encompassing calls, email management, web chat, SMS and social media in one integrated solution.

Elaine Stratford, Sales and Marketing Director at McCarthy and Stone North London, said: “The world we live in and the ways in which we communicate are changing every day, yet the solid principles of clear, personalised and supportive customer engagement still remains. McCarthy and Stone’s winning formula comes from our dedication not only into investing in quality design and building delivery, but careful attention and consideration to providing the very best service and support.

Having worked with the team over the last few years, and as part of our ongoing commitment to providing excellent service, we have partnered with Ventrica’s specialist services to ensure that our valued customers can contact us through whichever means come most naturally to them, whether that’s over the phone, or online.

“As the only housebuilder to have achieved the coveted Housebuilding Federation’s (HBF) 5* status for the tenth year in a row – a customer satisfaction award which is scored independently by our own customers – we are confident that by investing in state-of-the-art customer service support provided by Ventrica’s team, we will continue to deliver stunning developments and first class service that our older generations truly deserve.”

As part of the partnership, Ventrica has invested heavily in both technology and training, with a full interactive training suite and dedicated quality assurance team on-site to ensure that the customer support team integrates fully with McCarthy and Stone’s personalised approach to customer and sales support.

Managing Director and Founder of Ventrica, Dino Forte commented, “We are absolutely delighted and honoured to be working with such a fantastic and well-respected name as McCarthy and Stone. First impressions are a massive influence on how a relationship develops and whether a prospective buyer becomes a customer. Buying a retirement apartment is a big decision, so it is essential that the whole experience feels right.

“By acting as a first point of contact for all nationwide enquiries, our experience of multi-channel customer service, together with our existing property knowledge, will enable us to introduce a wider choice of contact for McCarthy and Stone’s clientele including social media and web-chat. In turn this will help to maintain the company’s already high levels of customer satisfaction, add significant value to the overall customer journey and ultimately increase property sales.”

Construction is already well underway at McCarthy and Stone’s Centenary Place development on Southchurch Boulevard in Southend which, when complete, will deliver 30 stylish one and two bedroom apartments aimed exclusively at the over 60s. The apartments will be released for sale from plan early in August, and the first homes are expected to be ready to move into in autumn this year.

With a commitment to invest £2 billion during the next four years in land and build, McCarthy and Stone plans to deliver 12,000 new homes across more than 300 locations, including in the new North London region. For more information call McCarthy and Stone’s dedicated Freephone information number on 0800 298 7040 or visit: www.mccarthyandstone.co.uk