Our Quality Management System is now accredited. What does that mean?

This summer, Dot Dot Dot was successfully accredited with ISO 9001, which is an international standard for Quality Management Systems (QMS). We therefore have a QMS which is robust: we have good processes and and we can demonstrate that we’re following them too. Take a look at our certificate here.

ISO 9001 has 3 main themes: customer focus, continuous improvement and a process approach. The idea behind this is that organisations with a good QMS will continually improve their products and services whilst also also following and improving internal processes. Organisational problems occur when people don’t have control over processes or activities, so our QMS ensures that Dot Dot Dot has control.

Why did we do it?

We want to provide the best service possible for all our stakeholders: property guardians, property owners and the communities in which we work. In 2016, we decided that formalising our QMS was an important part of growing up as an organisation. We wanted all of our stakeholders to be confident in our service and our efforts to continually improve. We also have ambitious plans to scale – it is essential that all of our systems are in solid and tested before we multiply our efforts.

How our approach was unique for an organisation of our size

At Dot Dot Dot, we wanted to make sure that our quality management system worked for us, and was tailored to our way of working.

A good QMS is one that suits the organisation exactly. Such system requires time and effort to be developed, established, documented, maintained and improved. It is typical for organisations to pay an external provider to review their processes and adapt them to something which meets the ISO 9001 requirements. We decided that it was important for us to do this properly for ourselves. This required many meetings, much trawling and improvement of data and a significant amount of time supporting all the team to adapt to a new QMS culture. Luckily, along with the creative minds at Dot Dot Dot, we have lots of process-driven and data-conscious people who were the drivers in us achieving our ISO 9001.

What being certified means for all our stakeholders

Property Guardians

We are committed to achieving high levels of efficiency for our customers as well as gaining their satisfaction and keeping them safe whilst they are in our properties. The ISO 9001 is a demonstration of everything we were already working toward: we don’t cut corners, legal and regulatory requirements are imperative to our business and we want to provide a quality service to everyone we house. To all our guardians, this is our commitment to you that we’re sticking to our values and standards.

Property Owners

For our clients, the accreditation is reassurance that we’re housing the most appropriate people in properties and that our relationship management is consistent across the board. It also shows that when we take on buildings, we will look after them and ensure they meet the legal requirement as housing options whilst also protecting the property. Having an externally accredited QMS demonstrates consistent high standards to every client no matter if we work in one or one hundred properties for them.

Communities

The great thing about having processes means that we measure and demonstrate real social impact in a community. We are committed to housing the best guardians who consistently volunteer for good causes and look out for their neighbourhood. Ensuring our internal processes are more efficient is freeing us up to focus more on social value. Watch this space.

What next?

ISO 9001 doesn’t tend to get hearts racing but it does mean that Dot Dot Dot is accountable for the work that it does. Objectively, we take customer service, continual improvement and business processes seriously. We will internally audit our processes as required and we will be externally audited annually. We look forward to remaining a high quality property guardian company to all the groups of people with which we work.