Saturday 31 March 2012

Channel Z

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK

Channel shifting is a recent phrase that many organisations and IS teams have recently been given to wrestle with. I have even been at a rather excellent presentation extolling the virtues of moving enquiries from expensive to less expensive channels. Often the process is that consumers start the initiative, business follows, then public sector get on the bus last of all.

As at 2010, the last time anyone appears to have checked, the costs of a face to face transaction was around £8.70, call centre £1.65 and website, just five pence. They say that there are damn lies and statistics. Quite rightly I cannot find the source of these taken from a Capita presentation, but it shows that this strategy has some legs. Volumes were not quoted, if they were I think we would have learnt marginally more.

I have seen the process at first hand. At one software demonstration I was involved in, residents lined up to tap at the satellite office window, trying to gain entry. It was explained that the room we were in was an area office, closed 3 months ago and these residents should be calling the 0845 number or visiting the head office in town, six miles away.

It made me smile as I could imagine my old mum doing something like that. If she was still alive today I could imagine she would be avoiding the internet with a vengeance. The internet and web access is often touted as one of the preferred channels for driving contact to. The government ICT strategy from March 2011 Government states it “will work to make citizen-focused transactional services ‘digital by default’ “.  Buoyed by the success of on-line tax returns and DVLA tax disc renewals, surely it’s the right way to go?

RSL’s are positive and receptive to this. There are many solutions out there too, so it should not be so taxing for the IS team to sort this for you. Most of the more switched on HMS suppliers have an out of the box internet facing solution for your residents these days. Also a few other third party solutions out there, such as SeeMyData. The more adventurous can also go down the DIY route. So what might be best for you?

It all depends on cost, how it’s to be supported (if it’s a package, that’s less of an issue, just pay your annual maintenance), what features you want to expose, do you want to reach just tenants or anyone in your contacts database, importantly how much do you want or need to customise? Remember, if you build it yourself, the application should be properly documented, so you are not vulnerable to staff changes or other risks.

Many solutions effectively utilise a data warehouse (a bit of a grand term, maybe just six tables populated overnight). While this can create resilience (ie if your main system goes down, your residents still have access), if you have a problem populating it, you lose service for some hours or days. Also you can be tied down to a limited set of tables and columns.

The ideal solution would be an out of the box solution from your HMS supplier, flexible and expandable to beyond your HMS tables & modules. For example, could you add additional info to the CMS like TP activity or locality info? Direct interactivity is a must too. If a customer can submit a query direct to the CRM or customer service team (as a call), rather than submit an email into some remote box, checked and emptied twice a day, that’s real joined up thinking. Also, can it easily be accessed in a mobile device browser, such as Safari on iPhone. Maybe even an app for Android or Apple IOS on ipad or iPhone.

Don’t forget security either. How will you sign up residents and contacts, what password and username arrangements will you need. Will you opt them all in, or ask them to sign up? Be sure to have your data protection lady as part of the project team. I just know she will have an interest! For goodness sake, don’t make it too hard though. Many solutions can be vulnerable to SQL injection attack too. Have someone in to undertake a belt and braces penetration test. It can reduce much embarrassment later.

One big disappointment with most channel shifting projects, is the terrible lack of take up. To take a solution at £1 a year per resident sounds good value, but not if the take up is only 270 people. If you manage 30,000 properties that works out at £111 each. Blimey, you could have nearly 3,500 face to face transactions for that. So what is the secret of getting your customers engaged?

Well, give them something useful. Make sure they have access to see their repairs and others in their block, close or scheme. Same with planned works, it’s great to see what’s going on in the neighbourhood and how it might affect you.  Access to rent account and rent changes is great if you are a leaseholder or not on HB. Ability to see local events is useful; parking suspensions or community events etc. ASB and the ability to see locally what issues are in play or to log ASB diary entries would attract me to log on more often. Also if you are a RSL with training and other initiatives in the community, promoting those via the web channel, as well as the usual CBL opportunities, is one more reason for your customers to engage.

Worth a mention here too, is digital exclusion. A big issue for older, unemployed and social housing residents in particular. Some RSL’s are tackling this by adding WiFi into schemes and doing tie-ups with charities such as ‘Help The Aged’ and others. Recent research suggests that over 60% of the over 65’s have never used the internet. For the unemployed 76% use the telephone and 10% attend the office whilst only 13% use the web/email. Only 10% of council house tenants and 6% of housing association tenants use the web/email.

In summary, I am sure it’s essential the RSL truly understands what customer service means and is dedicated to providing the lowest cost service of the kind that residents actually want. Internet/smartphone is part of that jigsaw, remember it’s not a silver bullet, just a chunk of what will be a piece of the overall ying and yang. Oh and keep an eye on your ROI. Essential before initiating any project of this type.

Read on to : Service Charges, how are yours managed?

Channel shifting, its not new, I am sure they have had it in Athens GA too.



 

(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk

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Saturday 24 March 2012

Connected

If you do the Twitter thing, follow TonySmith at @hotpixUK

I was pondering the other day, why IT teams are not more ‘plumbed in’ to management at large, particularly in the housing sector. In the space of just three weeks I have heard of three organisations where surveys of the profiling or other nature, were initiated, with no thought how the collected information may be stored.

In all three cases, the IT team were informed near the end of the process, when completed forms etc were coming in. The missing link in all cases was a lack of a rent account, tenant or contact number to tie the answers to. Now, if each of those were worth £50 to me, I would have £150 by now. Not enough to retire on, but it might have come in handy at Cheltenham last week!


Why is that the case, why does IT not often figure on senior management teams and boards?

Quite often it is because senior management is so remote from IT, the applications that actually run the business are operated and understood only by staff many layers down. It’s easy to have a slightly cynical view that things can be chucked over to IT when needed and those multi-functional staff will sort it.

It’s often the reverse of that where either
a)    A catastrophic IT project has been suffered
b)    A charismatic IT manager/director is in place
c)    One or more senior management, directors or board members pursue and understand an IT centric approach

The benefits are a no brainer. Connected, joined up thinking enables IT to be aware of (& to anticipate) what is being planned by the organisation, also for IT to flag up limitations. Most IT teams are limited by the applications in use and practical integration between them. Honesty is really the best policy. In my experience it saves much disappointment later and everyone sleeps better at night.

To move closer to a better relationship between IT and Senior management, a sales type approach often helps. Sell what IT brings to the organisation and how crucial it is. Aim to under promise and over deliver. Believe me, they will be eating from your hand. If not, the organisation will need to keep paying that excessive overtime bill, to fit all those things in at the last minute.

20 years ago, The Stereo MCs had cracked this.





(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,
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Wednesday 7 March 2012

Crystalline Green

If you do the Twitter thing, follow Tony Smith at @hotpixUK

In these desperate times, every place where savings can be made is being visited. One big area for many landlords is grounds maintenance. Particularly where a LSVT has taken place, the contractor responsible for it may still be the local authority.


Stories abound too of great savings to be realised from taking grounds maintenance in house, my local landlord ‘New Charter Housing Trust’ in Greater Manchester, being the latest. NCHT are predicting savings of £1.2M over the next five years. This includes grass cutting, weeding and hedge trimming, in this example to be completed inhouse.


As an additional bonus (there’s no end of good news with this!), the new team (called appropriately ‘Green Charter’ - Geddit!) will employ up to 29 people during the summer.


So, how should IT and systems be helping us work out if we can all be making similar savings? Can it?


Step one is to define the problem. It is unlikely that currently your association is in possession of an up to date inventory of green spaces, requiring grounds maintenance. “Up to date” you say? Yes, that’s probably the crucial bit.


The strips of grass, listed trees and historic open space information provided at transfer of stock, (or even when it was initially developed) is a living, breathing thing. Its affected by many factors, new build, storms and inclement weather, changes to street furniture and land sales.


One relatively small housing association I am aware of identified savings of £40K per annum for grounds maintenance, based on new accurate information. Over 15% of spaces no longer required services being carried out (rolled over each year) and a number of additional ones were located. This task for about 4,000 homes took approximately a month


How did they do that so quickly? Well, in truth it’s not all that tricky with a modern GIS solution.


The use of GIS was traditionally a silo type operation within an organisation. Also very expensive due to the eye-watering costs of mapping tiles. Both of these things are changing, particularly costs. Its possible to have change out of a years savings on grounds maintenance, once a GIS has been acquired. Particularly in the case of savings of £1.2M, the costs of GIS is a relative drop in the ocean.


Each green space can be identified as a polygon, categorised and recorded on a mapping layer. Export or interfacing of these objects and dimensions to your housing asset management module, then enables this information to be accessed in a number of situations. Hybrid/Satelite layers makes it even easier to locate and compare grass with concrete. This opens opportunities way beyond simple use by the Assets team.


As the polygons define areas required, it is a relatively easy job to accurately estimate costs internally, for your own contractor team or to request comparison quotes from external contractors.
Exposing this data to other areas of the organisation, this information can usefully extend customer service. How good would it be when a leaseholder next calls your customer service centre, complaining about grass not being cut, that your CRM team can see the details directly from the screen in front of them. “Is your long grass at the front or rear of your property?”, “Rear”, “We are only responsible for the rectangular strip at the front. Anything else we can help you with today.......”.


You are probably getting the idea. Imaginative integration is the key to that, one of my favourite hobby horses. Ensure when you evaluate any GIS system, GGP, CadCorp or Esri etc, that the quality of links with other systems, has high prominence in your scoring. That will ensure that GIS does not remain in a silo, with two boffins in the corner of the asset management team.

I wonder how Alison Goldfrapp keeps her lawn in check?.



(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,
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