Episode 16 – Part 1: The importance of independent reviews of your reports with Kate Charrington, Projekt3

The following transcript is autogenerated so may contain errors.

Matt Nally  00:27

On this episode of Survey Booker Sessions, we’ve got Kate Charrington, from Projekt3. So thanks for coming on today.

Kate Charrington  00:47

No problem. Thank you.

Matt Nally  00:48

Do you want to give us a bit of background as to what you do before we sort of started going into different sort of topics we’ve got lined up for today. Sure,

Kate Charrington  00:55

Yeah. So my name is Kate Charrington as Matt said. And I’m Director of Projekt3, which is just me. Essentially, my work boils down to helping surveys actually improve their home survey reports in a couple of different ways. So I run a future proofing home surveys programme. But also I undertake quality assessments for independent surveys, and particularly micro businesses.

Matt Nally  01:18

I think there’s a there’s a few topics I’d like to cover today. And we might put this as one episode, or there’ll be three different ones that people can listen to. But the first one I’m really interested in is based on what you’re doing. Why is having a third party reviewing your reports important? Like does it really matter? Or can you just go through it yourself periodically? Like what’s the benefit?

Kate Charrington  01:38

Yeah, sure. So really good question. So I think firstly, I would say that it is within a surveyors power to absolutely kind of self evaluate. But also, it’s actually their duty, I would say to do to do that as well. I don’t think that there is a kind of need to merely do one or the other, I absolutely think of self kind of self evaluating quality, assessing your own survey reports, is as valuable as having independent reviews, but I don’t think they should necessarily actually be in place of each other. If we think about the kind of benefits of kind of evaluating your own. So first and foremost, well, you’re actually at the heart of what you do, right, you’re the person that can actually amend your own report, you’re the person who can actually see any mistakes that you may have made when going through your site notes, or whatever. And actually making sure that you’re actually putting the right things into the survey itself. So you’re actually very much kind of closer to home, if you will, in terms of actually making sure that what you’re actually delivering in terms of your survey report is not just correct, but also actually meeting meeting standards as well. And also, from that kind of self evaluation perspective, I think what that really helps a surveyor to do is actually create that sense of continual improvement. And that’s, you know, that’s really important. That’s what we do year after year in terms of CPD. And I think whilst knowledge in terms of CPD is one thing, quality is obviously another. And that’s driven by by continually reflecting on what it is that you’re, you’re actually delivering. And so like I say, that self kind of assessment piece is still really valuable, and really important. And the place where kind of independent quality assessment or auditing, if you will, kind of comes in is really is really drawn from the fact that it’s at arm’s length. So if you think any of the work that you do any work that I do, you know, sometimes we do it, same same thing day in day out, particularly from a surveying perspective. Yes, we’re seeing different properties. But ultimately, we’re producing a survey report, right? So we’re doing the same thing day in day out. And as a result of that, we can potentially become complacent in what we’re what we’re doing. So having that independent quality assessment is really important from the perspective of having that truly objective opinion, and viewpoint of well, okay, a is this correct, but be importantly, from kind of my standpoint, and what I do on a day to day basis, is are you actually meeting the standards to which you’re actually trying to align yourself to so whether that be our PSA, would that be our ICs? Home survey standards? Are you actually making sure that you’re delivering on the standards required? And also, in addition to that, I think from an independent quality assessment perspective, if you do have independent quality assessments, so that can potentially help in terms of your in terms of your PII as well because you’re actually done illustrating the fact that you are keen and willing to have an independent review undertaken. And it’s not. It’s unfortunately, it’s not something that’s actually undertaken regularly or overseen by people. So. So from that perspective, that’s really important as well. But the like I say both both helped to really kind of drive, drive quality, avoid mistakes, reduce claims, reduce complaints, but equally both have their place in, in making a home survey as good as it can be. But I don’t think that they should be done. Just one, one or the other.

Matt Nally  05:40

Perfect. Okay. So if you’re doing a self evaluation, when’s appropriate, because obviously, there’s the, the period of reflection you’re meant to have before submitting your report out. So is that enough of a self audit? In terms of a pause? I’ve looked back over my report. I’m happy with what I’ve put in there. Or should it be I’ve taken a day aside? I’m looking at quite a few reports. And what are the good points? I liked in my reports, what do I think is lacking? What’s the level you should go to?

Kate Charrington  06:08

Yeah, that, in fact, is a really good question. So I think from a from the perspective of time, I, I’m kind of hesitant to align to that concept of, if you know, we should do it within this period of time, because ultimately, what we want to make sure we’re doing is delivering a report that reflects what we’ve seen on on our inspection, but also actually meets the meets the survey standards that you’re trying to align to. So when I talk about quality assessment, or vetting or auditing, however you’d like to kind of frame it, I’m not talking about proofreading, which is what every surveyor should be doing. And I really urge every surveyor to let you know, we’re not talking about proofreading, we’re talking about have you actually met the fundamental principles of achieving a level one survey level two, level three, or all those equivalents? And whether you do that the same day? Again, I mean, you mentioned about reflection there. I think reflection is absolutely important. And if you’re delivering surveys, personally, I think that you do need that that time. Sorry, I’m kind of hesitant to say because there are surveyors who do deliver reports within 24 hours, right. And I wouldn’t like to say that that’s, that’s a bad thing. Maybe that is part of their USP, I, you know, but equally, I think that period of reflection is vitally important. And you might be really grumpy one day, you might have had a bad day, you might have written something that actually doesn’t really make sense. You know, which, which I can see somewhere else. So I think if you, if you do at least allow until the following day, to go back over it and not just proofread, like I’ve mentioned in terms of spelling and grammar, etc. But actually fundamentally, say to yourself, Well, okay, have I told the client what they need to be told within the scope of of my terms of engagement, then that’s, then that’s a little bit different. And that can be done, you know, within within your own kind of device timeframe?

Matt Nally  08:26

Yeah, I think that’s a fair point. It’s difficult in that writing an email, sometimes, in terms of you go back over it, and you realise I’ve missed half the context that made sense in my head. But if I’m explaining it to someone else, actually, quite a bit more in there. I suppose then, in terms of flipping it into the independent assessment, and the independent auditing, what’s the benefit of doing that? What do you cover? How does that process work? How often should you do it?

Kate Charrington  08:49

So I actually offer I used to offer ad hoc kind of quality assessments. I don’t tend to do that so much now, because I think when it comes to quality assessing, if you’re truly of the mindset that you’re going to continuously provide high quality reports, you can’t just have a one off independent review, and then say, Hey, I’m great. You know, please, please come and get a survey from me. So that’s why I typically tend to tend to carry out monthly or annual services, which have a certain amount of reports actually looked at, and of course, that will be dependent on whether you’re a one person surveyor or whether you’ve actually got a team. I typically work with independent, you know, micro business surveyors who, I mean, they can have one per month they might have have more. I think just getting started is really key. Because as it stands, there’s a lot of solo surveyors as I call them, kind of out there who just don’t have that that oversight. So whether it’s whether it’s me whether it’s appear, you know, me Make sure that you’re having some kind of external oversight, really of your reports. And it’s not about getting it done before they go out. Because ultimately, that’s that’s your responsibility. I’m not here to, to kind of validate your opponent in any way, because of course, I’ve not been see the property for one thing. And secondly, that’s not my bag. That’s not what I want to be doing. But in terms of how it works, do you mean in terms of the kind of process itself?

Matt Nally  10:32

Yeah, so like, do you do it remotely? Do you turn up on site? How many reports would you look at? What are you actually looking for in those

Kate Charrington  10:40

show? So I mean, in terms of my work, so it’s done all remotely. So I made a pretty big kind of pledge to myself at the beginning of my journey with projects really to make sure that everything that I was doing, wouldn’t require me to, you know, travel about in my car, all the time. So So for me, it’s all done on a remote basis, where I essentially deliver a, a kind of privately accessed folder for people to insert their documents, and then I’ll review view them, and then send them a report back, which they can, they can obviously, then use to actually have a look at not just where I’ve actually stated, you know, this is where the reports actually not met the requirements of the survey standard. And here are the suggested improvements as well. So in terms of my kind of product, if you will, it’s not, it’s not just about kind of stating, where a survey hasn’t quite met the requirements, as they relate to the standard. It’s also about suggesting where they can actually improve as well, because I think that’s, I think that’s really important from not just a quality perspective, but also to, to kind of get to a USP element as well.

Matt Nally  11:59

Yeah, that’s one of the things that I see a lot of debate around is photos and report, you know, should that be an upsell? Or should that be a standard because we’re now looking at people putting potentially videos in, you know, or sending video links up, which explains a lot more than photochem. But the idea, obviously, is photos, it gives more context to what we’re talking about. But I suppose with that, my point is, if you’re if you’re working on own, and you’re getting to see what the market is doing, generally, because you’re working with your own bubbles own when you want to call it, then you might not realise how much the markets moved on in terms of what other people are providing within their reports in terms of content, quality, whatever it might be. But equally, is it’s better suited to people that are new within the business. It says the external auditing, and therefore as you get older, or more experienced is probably the better way of putting it. You can do more self auditing, or is it something you should constantly do?

Kate Charrington  12:59

I think it’s a constant. I think it has to be, like I said earlier, if you do something over and over again, yes, it might become second nature in terms of the process. But actually, you know, even just basic things like our our survey is actually reviewing their standard phrases on a regular basis. I can say from what I see, no, you know, there are things which have moved on, I think, particularly in terms of things like minimum energy efficiency standards, I still see surveys work, which actually kind of comment on mes as a, as a policy that’s going to happen, versus something that’s actually already in place. So even things like that is is, you know, you would think simple, but actually something which surveys probably don’t have a lot of time to do. Probably, but equally, I would say that they should afford themselves the time to go through their, through their phases and make sure they’re all up to date. But I think regardless of age, regardless of experience, you can do exactly what I said you can self assess. But you need an independent eye. Much like, well, if you think about, you know, business accounts, you know, I like the fact that I have an accountant who actually wrote, right, it’s all about having somebody else to just check things over, make sure everything’s been accounted for or whatever. So yeah, whichever kind of stage you’re at in your surveying journey. I think it’s really important that you that you access both of those.

Matt Nally  14:47

I suppose it goes back to the point you don’t know what you don’t know. So you might not realise what you’ve you’re missing out or not commenting on well enough or whatever it might be if you’re not getting that external context, because you’re just not aware that you don’t know it. Um,

Kate Charrington  15:00

exactly. You mentioned about, you mentioned photos. And that’s a really interesting one for me and one, which I frequently kind of bang the desk up, because I’m. And what I mean by that is just that, you know, photos, what did they was that phrase, they say, you know, photos can tell 1000 words, right? But they can’t, if you don’t know what you’re looking at. So it’s all very well inserting a picture, but are you actually inserting annotations and captions to supplement that for the client as well. And that’s just, you know, that’s an example of something simple, which can absolutely be rectified quickly, and will not just help the client but will elevate your, the quality of every report instantly. And it’s yeah, you know, it’s something that’s missed off.

Matt Nally  15:53

That’ll tie in to something we talked about later around, how you increase your fees through better reports as well, which comes on to explaining it as well. But the I suppose the other the other aspect, then you’re seeing a lot of reports from a lot of surveyors, and one of the gets used as a USP, I think may possibly can’t be an USP anymore, because it’s something that everyone says, but let’s talk about jargon free reports. Do you find going through them? They are jargon free? They do make sense? Or are they often quite technical? People might not understand it’s lacking photos to support? What what a purlin? is or what or whatever it is?

Kate Charrington  16:27

Yeah, it’s interesting, I would say it’s it’s kind of half and half. So I There are a lot of reports, which are actually I’m kind of shooting myself in the foot here. But sometimes too simplistic. And I, because they’ve not actually met particular standards in terms of what’s required of, of particularly level two or level three. And if I think about the kind of elevation of surveys, so it level one, you would probably think well, that that does need to be basic in terms of what it says and what it delivers. And arguably, that’s true, but level three should be equally accessible to all clients. And what I tend to find is that the higher the survey level, or survey equivalent, the more technical content and the more technical jargon is actually used. So if I think about, you know, in the last month, in particular, I’ve seen, you know, the concept of thermal bridging U values, HW West see, you know, what does that mean to people? What is a U value? What is HS WC, you know, hotword storage cylinder, sorry, I’m getting them back backwards. So ah, WFP. So, you know, it’s, it’s those types of things where, just because you’re delivering maybe a level three report doesn’t mean that your content should be more complicated or more complex. And so particularly for surveyors actually delivering level three reports, I would say to you, you know, go through your standard for, in fact, everyone, but go through your standard phrases, and really kind of have a look of their key key terms, key concepts, and key phrases, which actually, kind of aren’t accessible by by layperson who doesn’t necessarily know the components of property and or defects associated with them.

Matt Nally  18:31

Yeah, it’s interesting, because you also forget how jargon and common terms to self and are actually alien, somebody else, it’s the same for us with with software, you know, we’re trying to describe certain things, you have to take your Santa hats off, and actually, that’s not gonna make sense to somebody else and break it down a bit more. But we do the same thing with self reflection, it’s from a from a looking at the system and how it sets up, you know, we have people come in and review it from a third party perspective and, and make sure it’s doing what it should do. So it’s important, it’s the only way of knowing how you’re performing and the world moves on in terms of the context you’re working in. And the NSA, I’m completely all for it. Yeah, I suppose the higher the level that the more jargon that the only other thing I was thinking about on that is, what is it that you should be putting in then to a high level report that you’re not putting into a level level one, for example, a lower level? That’s not It’s not jargon? So how do you how do you then provide that better detailed report without

Kate Charrington  19:31

provide you can provide the detail but I think, by all means, use those different key terms concepts, you know, but what you need to be doing is actually something supplementing that with, I hesitate to use the word but almost like a glossary, you know, if you are talking about thermal bridging, explain what that actually is. If you’re actually talking about rising damp, whilst it’s, you know, clear and obvious to us as practising surveyors Do does your average layperson actually know what that rising damp actually stems from and what that actually means for your property. So it’s not about omitting those key terms and concepts. It’s about making sure that if they are there, that they are explained appropriately. And, you know, I’m meeting standards at the same time.

Matt Nally  20:21

Then my last question, then on the auditing aspect, just just back on the sort of, How often should you do if someone’s working with you around getting their reports checked? Should they do it once a year, twice a year, or more regularly than that? What’s the sort of appropriate level?

Kate Charrington  20:37

I mean, I don’t really have a, I mean, what is appropriate, like, I could say to you, Well, every week, you know, but the reality is, is that people can’t don’t want to do it every week. You know, I every month is typically what I have clients actually do. And that might be that might be for, you know, a continual period of time, it might be for a shorter period of time. And the reality is, is, you know, cost of living things change, you know, but if you are, in particular, if you are a solo surveyor, and I would say, you know, at least monthly is a good way to get yourself onto a, onto a kind of positive trajectory in terms of delivering quality assessments, or sorry, quality assessed survey reports. Because, like I mentioned a little bit earlier, doing it ad hoc, isn’t something that I particularly am keen to do, because I wouldn’t want a surveyor saying, you know, I’ve had my reports checked by project three, and they’re, you know, high quality, or it’s actually it’s just one check in one, you know, snapshot of time, much like a survey, you need to have it done on a continual basis, really, but But yeah, in answer to your question, if you really are picking out a timeframe, I would say, say monthly is, is beneficial.

Matt Nally  22:05

Okay, so run around the external audit aspects versus doing it yourself. When I know some software’s, right, because they will put high quality reports on the website or in emails that go out to customers. But are there considerations around when you can say it’s a high quality report? Or? Or are they USPS? The things you can do to list that as a USP property?

Kate Charrington  22:29

Yeah, so Well, I mean, so my, one of the kind of facets to my my work is that actually, if you do get quality assessed on monthly basis, then you do have access to my kind of quality assessment badge, which you can actually pop on your, on your website, and then in your email signature and things. But I think that’s, that’s a real kind of bugbear, I think for for the industry, because I do see like, like yourself, a lot of surveyors on their websites, we’ll put, you know, we deliver high quality reports, but they don’t actually evidence, how they’ve, how they’ve established that. So what whilst I’m not saying that their reports aren’t of high quality? And the question is, okay, well, where have they actually got that from? And, and specifically, around that great kind of client reviews do not necessarily equate to high quality survey reports that meet standards. So if you think about a client, I mean, Matt, just question to you how many, this might backfire? But how many how many times in your life? Have you actually moved?

Matt Nally  23:46

By house? Yeah, it has a purchase. I haven’t I’ve not gone down the route of having a port My brother has, I’ve seen I’ve seen his.

Kate Charrington  23:55

Okay, so So if that is something that you choose to do, or whatever, you know, in terms of your age, and how many times you’ll have seen a home survey report, you’ll have seen one report across the period of your lifetime, and you won’t actually have seen it against or comparable to other survey reports, either. So, you know, if you if you think about clients that typically move, you know, every 10 plus years, I think there was a report out back in, when was it like 2017 2019 That said, most people move every 23 years I think it was or something, you know, something like that. And so clients don’t actually know what good looks like they might be happy with your report. And but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve actually met the Met the required standards associated with that. And I can’t remember if I mentioned earlier, but you know, templates might imply the same quantity. But I can kind of tell you From what I see, I see templates, which very sorry templates of the same template sorry, reports, back to Excel reports delivered in the same template, but varying vastly in terms of the quality. And so in terms of when surveyors are actually claiming high quality reports, on websites or on any kind of marketing material, I would, I would get them to really kind of review that and see how, how can they actually evidence that their reports are high quality?

Matt Nally  25:38

Yeah, it’s very fair point, actually. Because Because high quality, there is no benchmark for people to come to compare high quality of one person versus another in terms of that statement. It’s, you know, other than it’s an RSCs, level two level three home survey, which again, is only a minimum, and they don’t necessarily know all the ins and outs about that. So I suppose that ties in with other industries, but you’re right, being able to say it’s quality assessed by third parties give more weight to the, to the argument then and therefore more justification and charging a higher fee ultimately,