GREATER MANCHESTER BUSINESS AWARDS WINNER – BUSINESS OF THE YEAR (10 – 20 employees)
ABC+ Warranty based in Altrincham were keen to chat about what the award meant for their business. Business Connect spoke with Managing Director Adele Reid:
Congratulations on winning Business of the Year (over 10 employees). Tell us how you feel about winning the award?
“It’s great that we’ve got the recognition that our team deserves following years of hard work. A huge thank you to the Greater Manchester Business Awards. The team at ABC+ Warranty have been ‘critical workers’ throughout COVID. Our Surveyors have been on the front line, carrying out our crucial stages of inspection so that our clients could still carry on with their building projects, where most other Warranty providers just stopped. Winning an award like this makes the whole team feel the work they have done has been appreciated and worthwhile.”
What do you think were the reasons ABC+ Warranty were voted as winners?
“We’re constantly looking at ways to simplify the Structural Warranty process and procedures. Our customer’s experience and their journey with us is essential so we’re always looking at ways to improve. We never stop innovating. Also, standards are important to us. We’re raising awareness of just how crucial good workmanship is from every type of tradesperson that is involved during the process of house building in the UK. We only certify properties free of defects, properties that are built to last. ABC+ provides consumer confidence when purchasing a home that is certified by us.
“During the pandemic we assisted the Government in writing the COVID Safety Back to work office guidelines to assist people returning to work in a safe office environment following the first lockdown, and our Surveying Team created the ‘Safe Site inspections’ guidelines for clients and surveyors to protect all involved whilst our surveyors carried out full site inspections during the first Lockdown in March 2020 and beyond.”
Tell us more about the work you do?
“We provide 10 Year Structural Warranties, also known as latent defects insurance, which is an essential mortgage lender requirement. If you are raising a mortgage to fund building works or if you wish to sell the property within 10 years of it being completed, you will not be able to do so if you don’t have a Structural Warranty in place. It is also an insurance policy that provides a way to claim against structural defects that are not covered under your buildings and contents home insurance policy. We have our own team of Surveyors who guide you through the Warranty requirements.
“ABC+ Warranty is suitable for all types of residential and commercial building projects from new builds and/or converted properties and buildings. When the building works are completed, we issue our ABC+ Warranty certificate which is mortgage lender approved.”
How quickly can you provide survey results compared to others in your sector?
“We have created our own electronic survey reports which our Surveyors access through dedicated devices during our inspections. This enables our inspection reports to be with our clients within just a few hours of the inspection, rather than weeks. We also provide the fastest Structural Warranty quotation service in the UK known as our QuickQuotes. This provides clients with an indication of costs so that they can factor this into their building project costs from a very early stage.”
How do you support your local community as a business?
“We’re very keen on offering local apprenticeships. We’ve just taken on two young local apprentices, and we’re supporting them through their 5 year Building Surveying degree at Salford University. Also, when using external support we use local businesses, for example Social Media and HR support. Our principal Surveyor is also a weekly attendee of the local Grafters networking zoom meetings which supports a large majority of construction trades specialist. In addition, we sponsor local schools and charities – The Children’s Adventure Farm Trust as an example.”
What’s next for ABC+ Warranty?
“We’ll continue to provide advice to the Construction Minister, the New Homes Quality Board and the New Homes Ombudsman regarding raising the building standards and the requirements needed in the UK to restore confidence in the UK housing market. Good building standards are vital for our economy and so we will continue to make waves and raise awareness amongst construction professionals. We’ll also be launching our mobile phone App shortly which will make the Warranty process even easier to navigate, plus offer lots more exciting technologies that our clients will enjoy exclusively.”
Find out more – contact the award winning customer service team on 0161 928 8804
info@architectscertificate.co.uk
www.architectscertificate.co.uk
