Contact

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or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/



Last week I had an enjoyable day at one of the business suites at Old Trafford, with a view of the half ryegrass & half artificial pitch, getting a healthy suntan. It was the inaugural meeting of the Tenant Management Forum, organised by that good egg John Doyle, of the Housing Contact Company.


I am a massive fan of events like this, that bring together a number of organisations to share what they are doing, and how they tackle common problems in different ways. This is the second of these types of events, where I have participated on a panel. This one was great and I think I have met some new friends, who are attacking areas like arrears and satisfaction in some new ways.

A theme of the whole event was 'contact'. the solution that was being used by many is an automated contact platform. Platforms that help you dial a number, have been about since the 1990's, this goes one step further by automatically engaging and creating the incoming call. Bad numbers are also returned to users, so data can be easily updated (or chased) from the customer service centre. Sometimes more easily said than done that one, you might say. Much of our efficiency does turn on accurate contact details though.

A number of areas were discussed, including if in social housing we are commercial enough. Barry Marlow was on hand to agree that we were not quite hitting the spot with that and mixing it with a social heart. Often our board members and chief execs are the barriers to acting more commercial it seems. Some users of Call2collect are managing to attach Former Tenant Arrears in a very commercial manner, with the example of over 35% increase in collection at Riverside.

I have found that staff are often reluctant to pursue arrears, against official policy and often to the consternation of managers. Rachael Watson from Riverside was an extremely interesting speaker and it was clear, the extra challenges a large organisation like that, have to manage. Something like Call2collect or any new application can make that job easier, as staff have a new reason to adapt if its newly being introduced. Managers who use this argument fast, make quicker inroads in my experience.

Call2survey allows satisfaction to be zoomed in on too. Clearly ramping up response rates from 5-7% up to 32% and above, provides a number of opportunities to capture problems. This can increase the number of complaints logged, which sounds counter-intuitive.  This just reflects that many complaints and issues with repairs and customer service, were not originally being logged. It was clear that organisations, such as Accent and Adactus were using the exercise to nail problems and improve service. Better service equals lower costs, better to get things right first time, with maximum efficiency.

I seriously hope this is one of many Tenant Management Forum events going forward. With a great group of people in the sector exchanging ideas and best practice, these will be of great value for the future. See you next time! 

Find out more about the Housing Contact Company here - http://www.housingcontact.co.uk/

     Catch the blog monthly archive at https://archive.org/details/@housingitguy

Related Post: Has your organisation discovered Yammer yet? 

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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.


Edwin Starr - Contact.
(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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Seeing Double

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




On compiling some functional requirements for a CRM module, one request was, a means of preventing duplicate entry of contacts. Isn't that the holy grail?

Everyone I know is plagued by duplicate contacts in their systems. Some are converted there, when a an independent lettings waiting list meets rent account households, in a new system. In a general sense many are just plugged in there without thought by your customer service team.

I have heard some people say, "Why does that matter to me". Why is it a problem?

Well, it's bad for your organisation, clearly wasting time and money in a whole number of hidden ways. There might be a whole raft of contact numbers, but is that on the most recent or most accurate contact? How much time might it take an arrears team member to try all five numbers, to locate the only half decent one, on the third version of the contact? Are you feeling my pain yet?

Duplicate contacts cause incorrect communication and makes your organisation look unprofessional. As the problem gets worse, it becomes an even bigger mountain to climb. How much time must be set aside for sorting out such a problem? It's not surprising that so many organisations just live with it.

Shouldn't suppliers be helping us on two fronts. One to stop us getting those duplicates in, at the front of the process and helping us de-duplicate them, once muppets have managed to get them in? Some CRM systems allow restrictions to empower only certain users to be able to add contacts. That puts a gate-keeper at the door, but would that work practically? Well it would slow a lot of people down. 

De-dup tools are frequently on supplier roadmaps but rarely seem to effectively surface in reality. Tools to restrict new contacts by comparing surname, DOB and initial, with cross-checks possible on NI Number or other data, seem to be the best we can do. Managers obviously need to enforce these checks too. 

I have done quite a few pieces of work to help people track and address poor and duplicate data. In many cases, once a great deal of data cleansing has taken place, it helps focus minds if some exception reports are created, that take the errors, straight back to the source. If a user is entering tenant or joint tenant contacts who are aged under 16, give it back to them to correct.

They won't like it, but after they have had a few hundred to fix, they will be 'on the bus', I promise you.    

     Catch the blog monthly archive at https://archive.org/details/@housingitguy

Related Post: Is your organisation superfly? Have they discovered the power of drones yet?

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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.


Ian Hunter - Seeing Double.
(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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Lets Work Together

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

Wow, workflow. A module always certainly specified by right thinking housing and computer consultants. Have you got workflow? Did you implement it? Does it just sit at the bottom right of your users screens, teasing you (if so I think I can guess what HMS you are using)?
Well, I asked you more questions than answers there people didn’t I?

Workflow means many things to all types of people. The top and bottom of it should be that intelligent workflow is that piece of glue that makes your housing system mould around your individual processes. An extra piece of flexibility and programmability that enhances basic module integration. The better ones are close to common languages like VBA, almost like a macro in nature. Its a bonus having it embedded right into the whole system too, rather than it being a little fragmented.

A minimum should be work tray management. iWorld users will know what I mean. The generation of tasks that might be directed at say a HO (Housing Officer) to call or visit a resident or a customer, as output from processes, are an ideal example of workflow. The system progressing tasks to follow your organisation processes.

Other places where workflow scores is when an exceptional circumstance occurs and different actions are needed. Rather than staff noticing that the resident logging an urgent repair is an elderly double stick user, in order to qualify for it to be upgraded to an emergency priority, the system could do it for them. They don’t even have to know, or you could remind them with a message if it has occurred. The programmer in you may recognise this workflow snippet:

If (Contact.Vulnerability = “DSTICK” or Contact.Vulnerability = “BLIND”) and Contact.Age >= “60” and WO.Default.Priority = “Urgent” then
       WO.Default.Priority = “Emergency”
       MSGbox(“Be aware, Default priority escalated to Emergency on this order as resident old and vulnerable. This follows our customer care policy”)
EndIf

The emergence of workflow should reduce the need to run out and change your housing management system every five years as your organisation changes. Also, it is worth having some of your IT team or key module champions aware of, or able to write some workflow to add flexibility inside your organisation. The alternative is to spend costly days with your systems supplier and often wait many weeks or up to 18 months in some cases (people tell me) for work to be completed.

So, does your housing system fit your organisation processes or not? If it doesn’t and you are already trying to use your workflow facilities to the max, you have a problem. Maybe you have no workflow, you should be looking perhaps for some more modern HMS solutions in that eventuality.

As mentioned, some Housing Management Systems (HMS) have workflow built in by design. Others use workflow as a bolt-on. In some cases, testing automation (or manual scripting) software  such as ‘Testcomplete’ can be used to achieve certain actions. This can have variable results, but is prone to major upgrades with application software, causing problems.

Do you think your organisation is being best served by workflow? Here’s a no-brainer tick list, see how well your workflow is performing:

• Arrears process (assisting in allowing totally flexible processes, emailing and texting where appropriate, generating outlook or mobile appointments for your staff setting up visits and appointments)
• Void process (alerting other teams as soon as notice provided, organising/scheduling a void inspection, communicating with lettings or asset team, updating your web pages, if this would be a CBL advertisement, automatically passing to the local CHR is you use one)
• Satisfaction Survey (automatically linking with external services you might use, like Voluntas, generating outgoing calls automatically if using one of the emerging caller systems (more on that in a later blogpost methinks), creating follow up tasks for CRM or P&Q (Performance and Quality) staff to investigate demand failure)
• Repairs (take into account resident profile like vulnerabilities, religious beliefs, age etc in prioritising and appointmenting repair, automatic awareness of defect periods and neighbourhood factors, like notification of asbestos in the scheme etc to contractors, links with text, email and mobile modules, automatic determination of financial codes)

As the above shows, the logic of workflow can prevent the need for ‘everyday’ decisions to be taken by staff, meaning that residents and customers see a consistent approach. E.G. if they are a double stick user and aged 62, their urgent repairs always well get upgraded to a 24 hour emergency, who ever or however a works order is initiated.    

In the current environment, how is your system workflow performing to make your organisation more efficient? If it isn’t, prepare to ask some questions or find someone who can!


Canned Heat, they might have needed a decent short-back-and-sides, but now they knew a thing about working together.


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

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