GEN034/12 Easter plan review and general service update

25/04/2012    For Information

This brief updates all customers on our provision and repair performance across the UK and reflects on how well our Easter plan worked.

In briefing GEN027/12 on Friday 30 March 2012 we explained how the delivery of our winter and spring plans, along with significant investment in service stabilisation, had been instrumental in bringing our provision appointment lead times down to an average of 4.5 days - significantly lower than our committed standard service of 10 - 14 days.

When we published the last briefing Easter was ahead of us - representing a period of reduced working hours and fewer people to complete jobs. Our previous investment in service stabilisation, along with ensuring the repair workstack was under full control, had put us in an excellent position.

Easter lead time impacts:

Easter was a good test for us. It showed that we were able to smoothly manage a period that has driven our work-stack up significantly in the past.

We reduced our repair workstack down on the run into Easter and managed to keep provision lead times at 4.9 days in the two weeks leading up to it and 5.1 days after the Easter weekend. This performance has been sustained since with this week's provision appointment lead times currently at 5.4 days.

Looking forward:

With the amount of additional investment we've made, it would be wrong to claim that we are achieving this by operating 'business as usual'. It is also on our minds that we cannot continue this permanent high level of investment over the longer term.

The great news though, is that managing Easter efficiently shows that there is scope to gradually reduce this level of investment and gently move to a position where we deliver closer to our committed standard service of 10 - 14 days.

Finally, we do take on board the feedback you've been giving us on how faster delivery has helped to exceed your customers' expectations of late. In response we are starting to look at ways to evolve our service options so that, even if we can't offer faster delivery on all orders, we can offer it on an order by order basis, at a price that is reasonable and accessible to all.

We are very interested in your views on this subject, and invite you to share your thoughts with your Sales and Relationship Manager.

Issued by KJS

The contents of this briefing are accurate at the time of writing and are subject to change.

Please discuss any queries or issues in relation to this briefing with your Sales & Relationship Manager or Service contact, who will be pleased to assist.

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