Belinda Thorpe, Managing Director of Residentsline, gives an overview of the year.

This year has, undoubtedly, been full of challenges for us all. Difficulty is a natural part of any business, but as we all know the pandemic has put a great deal of extra strain on almost every industry.

We are grateful that we’ve managed to carry on, as we know a lot of businesses have been hit very hard.  From remote working to new processes, we’ve had to adapt our way of working so that we can keep moving forward despite the changes taking place every week.

How did Residentsline find this year?

We’re very lucky that we have been able to function continuously throughout the pandemic.

Operating in a COVID-secure manner was difficult at first. It was an entirely new way of working which none of us had experienced before. Getting used to that whilst still making sure processes were running smoothly was a learning curve, but it was one we pulled through together. 

We managed to do this without needing to furlough any staff, which was a big plus for all involved.

One of the most important things we have learnt from the past twelve months is that many teams are made up of versatile, committed and adaptive staff members and, when a challenge such as this one presents itself, people pull together and adopt that community spirit to ensure livelihoods are protected.

To have made it through 2020 with our health and a bigger team seems like a great thing to reflect on.

What were the main achievements of the year?

For the company, one of the main achievements this year was that we were able to keep going during such a difficult period and continue with our plans for progression. At Residentsline, we truly pride ourselves on our company growth, so facing such unprecedented circumstances was a difficult thing to adapt to, especially when we have so many plans and goals to achieve.

One of our most successful growth periods came in the latter half of 2020. This was a result of the commitment and dedication shown by staff to adopt continued focus on our customer service standards. Combining this with a team who remained motivated and self-starting each day has meant we have achieved great things.

There are three big achievements to name which I think encapsulates our 2020:

1. Strengthening relationships with new insurers. This is an enormous part of what we do and is the foundation of our fantastic service. Being able to add more of the UK’s top insurers to our arsenal had been a fantastic win for us and means we can provide a wider range of premium products for all our customers. There is a lot to look forward to in 2021!

2. Keeping all staff working during the pandemic. This truly was the cornerstone of everything we achieved this year. Many companies have been forced to furlough staff which has been incredibly difficult for many – and unsurprisingly so. We’re very lucky that we’ve managed to continue our work from home.

3. Achieving some of our best retention and growth results. We’re really proud that we were able to maintain our work ethic and produce the results we have this year. We have a big focus on customer satisfaction and our service standards, so being able to build our growth and retention rates has been a big achievement for the whole team.

Manage Your Block PLUS

This year, we were able to release a brilliant new update to our Manage Your Block portal: Manage Your Block PLUS. You can access your MYB account through our website.

We’ve worked hard to ensure our plans to improve our products weren’t deterred by our remote working, and we wanted to make life as easy as possible for our clients (we thought this feature would be especially useful considering the virtual and remote world we’re learning to get used to).

• Service Charges: The Manage Your Block PLUS portal is a new feature which means that, for a small sum, you can now issue service charges to all your tenants from your MYB account. You can create the service charge invoice and email, then send this out to your contact list. You can also keep a record of payment so that you know who has paid.

We hope that our service charge feature will make life slightly easier for our clients. We’ve also made this available to those who don’t currently have a Manage Your Block account:

• Manage Your Block account holders: £49.00 extra per annum
• Non-Manage Your Block account holders: £149.00 per annum

Here’s to the future.

This year has been unlike any other. It has affected us all and it has brought with it a lot of suffering, unrest and uncertainty. We hope that next year will provide some relief for those who have had it hardest, and we’ll certainly be hoping that things get back to normal as swiftly as possible.