Miller Homes SWITCH On To Customer Satisfaction
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Leading housebuiler Miller Homes has reported, "A significant reduction in customer care costs" following its national specification of SWITCH, Gledhill's emergency back up heating and water system. Gledhill's BoilerMate fitted with SWITCH.
Miller Homes West Midlands customer care manager Richard Culpan comments, “Since specifying Switch, the number of expensive emergency call outs for plumbers have been significantly reduced. Most heating or hot water issues that may arise can now be dealt with quickly and simply, and with minimum inconvenience to the homeowner”.

Miller Homes originally specified Gledhill’s BoilerMate thermal storage appliance for the benefits it provides for the homeowner, such as economical energy use, hygienic hot water, five minute radiator warm-up, and mains pressure power showers. However, after successful trials Miller Homes quickly recognised that adding the SWITCH emergency back-up system to the BoilerMate units was proving invaluable for both its home buyers and customer service staff alike. Customer care costs were significantly reduced, resulting from fewer emergency plumber call outs and less customer care resources taken up dealing with the problems.

SWITCH, an electrically-powered heating source, can immediately be activated in the event of boiler failure. SWITCH technology can be specified on Gledhill’s BoilerMate and SysteMate 2000 for a fraction of the cost of servicing emergency call-outs, and comes as standard on GulfStream.

SWITCH was developed to instantaneously provide householders with an alternative heating and hot water source until their boiler is repaired and operating normally.
It was developed by Gledhill, recognising the level of resources taken up sorting out problems with boiler failure after purchasers took possession of their new homes. Although not a common complaint, the loss of heating and hot water needs immediate action.

Utilising the principles of thermal storage, Gledhill’s BoilerMate maintains a store of hot water at a constant temperature and circulates it through the heating system and radiators. Water from the mains supply is passed through a plate heat exchanger that is linked to and heated by the hot water contained within the store, which provides the domestic hot water.

Gledhill Chairman Houghton Gledhill comments: "With the growing emphasis on customer service and rapid response, it is remarkable that our industry has taken so long to develop a way of ensuring heating and hot water is maintained for householders. SWITCH doesn’t just mean that homebuyers don’t lose that ‘warm’ feeling about their new home, it is an effective ‘headache cure’ for developers customer service staff too”.