- Furniture Flex is all managed through a bespoke website, although we can provide any paper copies of information as required.
- Every customer receives their own version of the website with their organisation logos visible to employees and tenants, and the items that you have chosen available to be selected with relevant pricing.
- New tenants can be registered from a tablet, phone or laptop with an internet connection.
- Employees and tenants will have their own login and your team can then help tenants to select the items they want from our digital catalogue, just like online shopping.
- The rental agreement, as agreed with you, will be available to be read and signed digitally with a PDF copy instantly sent for your records.
- FRC receives the order immediately and arranges a delivery date directly with the tenant.
- Tenants can login to report broken/damaged items directly to FRC for repair, collection or replacement. Tenants will also be provided with contact information for FRC if they prefer to call or email instead.
- Your staff can manage items on their tenants’ behalf and add or remove items if needed.
- If items are removed from the account, FRC will contact the tenant to arrange collection and inform the customer when this happens with the amended rental charges.
- Invoicing is automated based on the previous period’s rental charges, with a full break-down provided.
- If a tenant has a question or concern, they can call our fully-trained customer service team for a resolution.
No, this is not the case. We will take as much of the work of providing furniture and appliances as possible. We deal with all delivery queries, faulty products, repairs, and replacements. We also keep a detailed log of what furniture and appliances are in each property so there is no need for you to keep an asset register. That said, where we have seen furniture schemes working the best are in organisations where they have a member of staff responsible for managing the service with the rental or purchase models. It gives your front-line staff someone “in-house” they can refer to when offering furniture. Either way, your front line staff will be given access to our app which will automate the ordering process and negate the need for any paper forms when referring tenants for furniture and appliances. See our task matrix to show what needs doing when providing furniture and who carries out each task. While there are some tasks your staff will need to carry out, our customer service team will manage most of the tasks to ensure you’re not overwhelmed with furniture and appliance queries.
Yes, with purchase or rental we can design the service to work for you and your tenants. We always recommend giving tenants some choices because every person’s circumstances are different. Also giving tenants the element of choice, means they take ownership and look after the products, which means less repairs and more products can be reused to help other tenants in future.
We are experienced at supporting housing providers to procure our service and can support you with any information that you need during the decision-making process. We can provide information and data for any Exec or Board reports you need to submit. We can also work closely with your procurement team, we are either the sole or top ranked supplier of furniture on several frameworks to make it straight forward to procure our services, with either supply model.
With the purchase model we will provide a detailed price list for the products.
With the rental model every product has a weekly cost, so that your tenant can select which products suits their needs. When the tenant has selected their products, the costs of each are added together to give the total weekly cost. The weekly cost ranges from approximately £5 to £50 per week.
The weekly charge for your tenants furniture can be paid for by Housing Benefit or Universal Credit. A service charge is added to the rent account, the same as any other service charge. If you have purchased the items and are renting them to your tenants, or you are renting from FRC, the costs can be covered by UC/HB.
With the rental model if a customer wants to return any of their products, they simply need to contact us, and we will arrange for the products to be collected. We will recalculate the weekly charge based on the number of items remaining and make sure you are aware of the change too. We’ll always advise the tenant if their costs are changing they will need to update their UC journal online.
With the purchase model this will need to be something you decide. We can help you with this process and work out what will be the best way for your organisation to operate.
We can provide brochures and weblinks to view products, and we can arrange for staff groups to visit our Liverpool depot if they would like to have a look round and view the products in person.
We understand things can go wrong or become worn, if your tenants have a problem with any product that we have supplied they can contact us, and we will arrange for it to be checked and if necessary, repair or replace it. This means your tenant will never be without their product. This is included within the costs of the rental model, however, with the purchase model if the fault develops outside of the warranty there will be costs for a new item.
With both the rental and purchase model we use our suppliers and manufacturers’ engineers to carry out warranty repairs.
Yes, if your tenant transfers to another tenancy with you they can take their furniture with them. While we do offer a disconnection and reconnection service for cookers and washing machines, your tenant would be responsible for moving the items between properties.
With the rental model the furniture will remain the property of FRC, with the purchase model you own the items. UC regulations state the tenant cannot be gifted or sold the items at a reduced rate if they have been in receipt of benefit to help pay for them. Please see our guidance to service charges for landlords for more information.
No, service charges can be added at any time during a tenancy, so if an existing tenant had a requirement for furniture or appliances their tenancy can be amended with a “tenancy variation”. Usually this will for a specific reason, fire, flood, family breakdown or financial hardship.
No, very few tenants steal or damage the items. With the rental model our pricing policy means we take on the risk of this happening which means no recharges or cost for you for any stolen or accidentally damaged products. If a product is deemed to be wilfully damaged there may be a recharge based on the current value of the item. This will be agreed on a case by case basis. With the purchase model this will be your cost should anything be stolen or wilfully damaged, however, as stated above this is very rare.
Standard lead time is within 5 working days. We have three depots, Liverpool, Manchester, and the Northeast, with a fleet of twenty-three vehicles. This gives us the capacity and flexibility to delivery quickly to your tenants.
No, all delivery staff are directly employed and trained by FRC. All are DBS checked and trained in safeguarding and complete a specially designed electrical training course so they are qualified to install cookers safely. We do use manufacturers’ engineers for some repairs; however, our suppliers all adhere to our codes of practice.
Once a year based on September’s CPI. We will notify you in December, so you have plenty of notice for the changes taking effect the following April and can inform your tenants.