Thirteen is extending the operating hours for its dedicated customer service phone number following customer feedback.
From 1 July, the housing company’s contact team will be open to take calls from 8am to 8pm, Monday to Friday.
Customers will be able to call contact team staff on 0300 111 1000 to talk to Thirteen about anything to do with their home, tenancy, neighbourhood or to pay rent and report repairs.
Outside of these times, customers can call the same number to report emergency issues only.
The introduction of the new extended service offers customers more flexibility and allows people to get in touch with Thirteen at a time more convenient for them. The extension follows a successful test of the revised opening hours over the past six months.
Michelle Wright, director of customer experience at Thirteen, said: “Customers told us that they wanted to be able to contact Thirteen outside of the usual 9 to 5 office hours.
“It’s important that we meet customer needs, so we trialled the extended contact team opening hours which proved to be very popular with customers.
“The 8 till 8 phone line will give customers further flexibility and hopefully help to spread customer calls throughout the day, which will help us to answer calls even faster.
“Although we deal with the vast majority of calls to our contact centre very quickly – usually within 30 seconds – we have some really busy periods where customers might have to wait a little longer for calls to be answered.
“Monday mornings are particularly busy so by extending our operating hours, we’re giving customers more options to hopefully call outside these busy times.”
Opening hours at Thirteen’s neighbourhood offices and helpdesks for customers to call in and talk to staff face-to-face will remain unchanged.