She Does It Right

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy




People of my age can all remember the days before everyone having web access and the days before the practical self-service, we have come to rely on. In fact, its what we have come to expect, do we not?

We practically reach for a Google search before much else these days, to check the price of something, how good people think it is, to complain, complement, order or buy stuff. Excellent and innovative self-service has meant we rarely visit banks and travel agents anymore, and we are empowered to expect anything, anytime and generally delivered in anything between an hour and a day generally.

But how have these organisations cracked the considerable barriers, of making these projects work?

I have worked with many organisations, with ambitious aims, but floundered with untried tech, dealing with multiple suppliers often locking horns like rutting stags, web user interfaces not living up to what modern self-service provides, or simply providing self-serve and hoping that ‘customers will just come’.  

A new up-coming ‘Digital Self Service In Housing Conference, in the autumn -  https://www.selfserviceconference.co.uk/ aims to sweep away some of the myths around why self-service projects struggle to get off the ground and how to tackle many of those challenges, outlined above. This I think is badly needed and naturally, will be providing some useful insights from my recent experiences.

Digital Self Service in Housing is a brand new conference for social housing that places customer self-service and digital channel shift at the heart of the discussion, ultimately answering the question:
“How do we deliver a truly successful digital customer journey?“

The themes that the conference will cover are:

•    Methodologies for delivering successful self-service projects
•    Managing multiple suppliers
•    User experience best practices for self-service
•    Online repairs reporting including self-appoint
•    Strategies for onboarding customers
•    Lessons learned from the front line

There are already six speakers lined up and I would recommend this conference to all in the sector, who would like to get digital self-service right, first time, with benefits for residents, customers and efficiencies in the back office too.
Confirmed speakers, experienced in getting the digital journey right, include:

•    Chris Reed & Karen Dumper, Yarlington Housing Group
•    Anna Robson, Livin
•    Lisa Candland, Torus Group
•    Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting
•    Adam Barrett, Access Social
•    Stephanie Duerden & Chris Thomas, Wigan Council
•    Camilla Busbridge, Active Housing

The conference is central and easy to get to in Solihull, West Midlands. Early bird delegate rates are currently available. I was also a bit cheeky and asked for an extra discount, for all readers of this blog. Just enter the code ‘DSSIH05’, for an extra 5% off, at the checkout - https://www.selfserviceconference.co.uk/register/ . Keep that quiet though, as if that gets out, everyone will be using it!

Register at https://www.selfserviceconference.co.uk/register/  

See you there, Tuesday 2nd October 2018

Related Post: when you have experienced a Critical Friend, you realise the real value of an external view on your projects & systems 

Catch the blog monthly archive at https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.

Dr Feelgood – She Does It Right.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.
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Beat Dis

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

  

It's not often the social housing world beats the Barclay's etc. of the business world, the Scottish FA and Cancer Research in IT innovation. Sure we figure annually  in the lists of 100 best places to work. So we should, most of us are a fluffy, caring lot. 

But IT innovation? Did you think you mis-read that one?

Our IT budgets are not the biggest out there, frequently we have to do more with less in a constantly changing regulatory  environment. Frequently IT people come into the sector and criticise the system and applications that we have at our disposal to work with. Often I spend time trying to fit projects to shrinking budgets and am used to meeting some pretty innovative folk.

One of my favourites I have worked the last year with is Yarlington, based down in Yeovil, South Somerset. Granted, a county many may think of as quite sleepy (if people can actually place it on a map at all, that is). We probably race through it to get to Devon or Cornwall now and again, but leave the inhabitants to have a quiet life, make excellent craft cider and those flying machine things at Westland & BAE.

Well, a quiet revolution has been going on down there. In contrast to many with GIS, they have worked with local authority, ESRI, and their stakeholders, to provide a global view of geography, people, YHG customers, crime, listed buildings, social factors etc. Yarlington then found a cost effective method of deploying that to everyone in the organisation, using tools from the great Mapchannels resource, who might be able to make use of it. All existing internal data sources are available too, providing over a hundred different layer combinations. This helps Yarlington put customers and residents further at the heart of what they do.

New sign-ups can view their new neighbourhood in terms of proximity to nearest Post Office, surgery or recreation facilities or parks. Also crime hotspots, local transport provision etc. the repair team can be more efficient as they know where listed properties, trees and features are present, saving time, effort and reducing (paid for) local authority searches. New developments can be targeted to new areas of need, many in successful new developments further afield than the traditional heartland of South Somerset. In these austere times, Yarlington is doing all they can to be in their customers corner. This is a tool that makes that a reality, day in day out.

I saw the presentation and video Karen Dumper and Chris Reed put together for the initial sessions for the UK IT Industry Awards. It was inspirational and showed the outcomes not the under the bonnet techie aspect of the solution. Emphasis was on how they had satisfied their customers, a theme and a message I make myself blue in the face trying to do, with many housing organisations. It's about them (the customers or customer users) not us stupid!

Last week I was knocked out to hear that they had beaten the competition hands down. A humble housing 'David' taking on 'Goliath's. Read more about it here http://www.yhg.co.uk/news/13-11-14/Yarlington_wins_top_award_for_I_T_project.aspx 

In my book we need more of this. IT working properly for the users & residents, people being freed up to innovate and think out of the box.

You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Read on to The End of those dial-up days:

http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.com/2013/09/end-of-my-high-wire-days.html

Bomb The Bass - Beat Dis .


(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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