On The Waterfront

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

I remember a time when social housing people would pay good money, to visit Halton Housing Trust, to catch a glimpse of the digital future. You were best advised to pack a few sarnies, a snack, liquid refreshment and an energy bar, as catering was not generally laid on for the entry ticket price.

I never did the trip personally, but met many who had.

Reactions differed, its fair to say. Did you or one of your colleagues visit?

Some of my contacts and clients, thought they had seen the future and worked to set off and implement it, others were horrified with such a fundamentalist approach to digital first or no customer service at all. Its fair to say, those sessions generated lots of discussions and were fabulous in that respect. SocialHousing had been in its traditional mould for the most part and needed a shaking up.

Barriers to digital first thinking I encountered, included (almost comically), “Well our tenants are mostly old and won’t go for it”, to asset and repair managers telling me, “Well we can’t trust them to be logging their own repairs, they will be ordering whole kitchens & bathrooms”. No word of a lie.

Well, the world didn’t go to pot when some decent self-service was offered and all ages, took advantage, to various degrees. At HHT famously, hard to crack tenants were equipped with tablets, creatively funded, which was great. All fabulous ideas that reordered workloads to enable Universal Credit rollout to be managed.

Lets not forget that Halton and the borough I live in, Warrington adjacent, were the initial guinea pigs for the ill thought out opening UC rollout. Drastic situations called for radical solutions. Many poor folk relying on Universal credit at that time, waiting up to nine months, to receive any payments at all. Truly unacceptable. So from me maximum credit for taking a bold, alternative approach.

However, perhaps for most organisations, the realisation is that omni-channel, a pick & mix on offer for residents, actually is an ideal solution, if its available. After all, some of us love the caramel pennies, although others like a mix in different situations. Sometimes its got to be a green foil wrapped triangle when the occasion calls.

I engage with many residents on Twitter and they have strong opinions on the mix offered of how they can contact their housing provider. Also how that is followed up, issues resolved and closed out. Its fair to say that its often after remote service failure, sometimes after self-serving, ‘Customer Service’ then kicks in. Repairs being a common theme, as ITV have highlighted.

If it can be supported and resourced, that ‘Customer Service’ element is of value to be there, at all times if needed. It was interesting last year before Christmas, that HHT opened a new customer and visitor reception area, at the Waterfront, Runcorn. More info here - https://www.haltonhousing.co.uk/about-us/news/new-waterfront-point-reception-opens-its-doors-customers-and-visitors

Of course much has changed in the management team at Halton, with some very good additions from the previous Torus Housing Group structure. Some great people I have had the pleasure to work with previously on serious transformation projects and taken a very hybrid and inclusive view of the customer service being offered.

I personally think that its good that Halton has moved closer to an omnichannel approach to customer service. It’s perhaps vindicated some of those doubters, who made those pilgrimages to Runcorn. Maybe a mix of channels to provide different strokes for different folks, was the best strategy after all…

What goes around comes around. Those 80's leg-warmers or 70's penny-round collars may well come back sometime soon!

Do let me know your feelings via DM or comments 😉

Related Post: Are we aiming high enough for our self-service?

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.

Simple Minds – Waterfront.
(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.

File Under: #HomesForBritain,#HousingDAY,#InternetOfTenants,#Shout,#UKHousing, 07854655009, 1st Touch,1stTouch,360,365Agile,3squared,4Js, ACL,ALMO,AMS,AX,Aareon,Abritas,Academy,Accuserv,Accuserve,Active Housing,ActiveH,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Affinity,Agile,Agile365,AirWatch,Alfresco,Alignment,Allpay,Amazon Web Services,Anite,Apex,App,ArchHouse,Archouse,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Associates,Aurora,Average IT Costs,AWI SX Integration Toolkit,AWS, BI,BO,BPR,BancTec,BigChange,Blockwise,BluTek,Bluebox,Blueprint,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning,Business Process Review,Business social networking, CACI,Capita One Housing,CBL,CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,CEDRM,CHICS,CHR,CIH,CMS,COA,CORE,CPL,CRM,CRM2013,CRS,CTI,CTX,Cadcorp,Capita,CapitaOne,Capita One,Capital Management,Cashflow,Castle,Castleton,Castleton Technology,Cedar Open Accounts,Cerrus,Change,Charges,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, Citrix,Civica,Civica CTX,Civica Cx,Civica 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Open the Door to Self-Service

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

I get involved in a lot of Social Housing digital plans and strategies, particularly around self-service. Often I meet newbies to the process, who seem to think 90-95% take up of tenant self-service is possible, and others who basically are a little afraid to put a figure on it. ‘Just an improvement’.

Would that be enough and would it really motivate staff to ‘convert’ tenants to self-servers, if there was no target at all?

Now I think it’s very important to have great self-service tech with practical usability that means residents will choose it as a preferable channel to interact.

We choose Amazon and EasyJet because it works and it’s efficient. In other ways we have channel shifted because we were driven to by sticks, not carrots. We stopped using cheques because the banks stopped filling stations processing them, moving to cheaper credit/debit cards. We stopped walking into bank branches and using internet banking, because all the branches turned into coffee joints and wine bars.

I feel we can have better carrots in the sector, than harder sticks. My experience of suppliers in the sector, such as Hallnet with their Active Housing brand, show that done well, those carrots can be extremely tasty. I was telling someone just last week a story of a visit I made a few years back to Torus Housing Group and an experience in their foyer, in St Helens.

It was a busy morning and I joined a queue of seven residents, trying to get to reception. During the lengthy wait, the tenant in front of me started to chat with the guy in front and asked him, “what he was here for today?”. He replied he was “reporting a repair” and the other chap told him, “you don’t have to come here to do that, why not do it online?”. In the following 3 minutes, I watched him help his neighbour sign up, log his repair and then he was out the door!

So that was a story of carrots so good, residents were sharing them among themselves! How good would that be?

I recently had a chat with a contact at Active Housing, who provide the leading one-stop fully integrated self-service solution Active Portal, about how practically, Housing Providers can better introduce the self-service tech, to the benefit of their residents. They shared that comms is very important, as is involving your tenant panel and internal key stakeholders in the project, to ensure it’s easy to use and hits the spot of what residents want from self-service. At every touch point with the organisation, self-service as a time saver needs to be introduced. Where staff interact, rather than taking away a request to progress, they should be working as evangelists, to introduce residents to self-service, where they have smartphones or similar means to take advantage of it.

If you are like me, everyone or any company I ever work with, I go to their website first. Active Housing provide an easy means of picking up this traffic and are able to provide a short tailored video, for organisations to introduce the benefits of self-service to their customers. Check out this one here from one provider and their new responsive webportal MyPhoenix - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i1n8U8eyQ8

Another really effective technique recommended by Active Housing, is to encourage clients to adopt an inbound call campaign. This is when a tenant calls (about anything at all) and the call handler signs them up for an account over the phone. ActiveHousing’s portal admin section has full support for this and the user still sets all their own login credentials to ensure security. It sounds old fashioned, but given they have to take the call anyway and organisations often have data issues which can prevent registration (eg incorrect Date of Birth’s), it's a proven but simple technique. 

Thinking back to my Torus experience, an important takeaway to share is that a degree of internal staff attitude and culture shift will be necessary. Reassure your Customer Services team that smaller might be better. Done well, this will cement behaviours for staff and reveal the benefits for a greater number of residents   

Checkout the best in self-service, with integration to multiple systems on the Hallnet Active Housing website here: https://www.activehousing.co.uk/

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Related Post: Effective Self-Service, a no brainer for all customers these days ?

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

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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.

Blues Cousins - Open the door.
(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.

File Under: #HomesForBritain,#HousingDAY,#InternetOfTenants,#Shout,#UKHousing, 07854655009, 1st Touch,1stTouch,360,365Agile,3squared,4Js, ACL,ALMO,AMS,AX,Aareon,Abritas,Academy,Accuserv,Accuserve,Active Housing,ActiveH,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Agile,Agile365,AirWatch,Alfresco,Alignment,Allpay,Amazon Web Services,Anite,Apex,App,ArchHouse,Archouse,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Associates,Aurora,Average IT Costs,AWI SX Integration Toolkit,AWS, BI,BO,BPR,BancTec,BigChange,Blockwise,BluTek,Bluebox,Blueprint,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning,Business Process Review,Business social networking, CACI,Capita One Housing,CBL,CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,CEDRM,CHICS,CHR,CIH,CMS,COA,CORE,CPL,CRM,CRM2013,CRS,CTI,CTX,Cadcorp,Capita,CapitaOne,Capita One,Capital Management,Cashflow,Castle,Castleton,Castleton Technology,Cedar Open Accounts,Cerrus,Change,Charges,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, Citrix,Civica,Civica CTX,Civica Cx,Civica Genero,Civica Saffron,Clearview,Clik,Cloud Dialogs,CloudDialogs,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Commontime,Community Reward Services,Company,Competitive Dialogue process,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation, Consultancy,Consultant,Consultants,Contact Manager,Context,Contractor Systems,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,Crystal Reports,Customer Relationship Management,Cx, DRS,Deeplake,Designer Software,Development Systems,Director,Document,Documotive,Docuware,Dynamic AI,DynamicAI,Dynamics 365,D365,Dynamics365, ECMK,EDM,EDRMS,ERP,ESRI,Elmhurst,Enghouse Interactive,England,English,EnterpriseBI,Estatecraft,Etive,Exhibition,Exponential-e, Facebook,Factorwise,Field Service management,Finance,Financial Systems,Financials,Fixflow,Footprint,Forms,Freezes,Fusion,Firmstep, Gas Tag,G-Cloud,Goss Interactive,GCloud,GDPR,GGP,GIS,GasTag,Genero,GeoSolveIT,Getting best from,GoTonySmith,Grasp,Grip,Group Apex,Granicus,GOSS HFI (Housing Financials interface),HG,HRA,Hardware,Hitachi 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GP 2013,Miracle,MobileIron,Mobysoft,Monopoly board images and pictures,Montal,Mr Void,MriEngage,MrVoid,MRI Socialhousing,MRISocialhousing, NDL,NINTEX,NINTEX workflow,NPS,NPS ASSIST,NPS Housing,NPS Job Manager Mobile,NROSH,Natural,Neighbourhoods and Communities,Nintexworkflow,Northgate,Northgate Codeman,Northgate Public Services,Notice,Netcall,Netcall Liberty,NEC Software Solutions OA,OGC Buying Solutions,OJEU Limits,ORS,Ohms,OmFax,Omniledger,One,OneAdvanced,OneServe,Open source,OpenContractor,OpenHousing,Opti-time,Options,Optitime,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,OutSystems, PIMMS,PIMSS Data,PM,PRINCE2,Paloma,Pamwin,PanConnect,People Value,Peoplevalue,PfH,Pick,PlanForm,Planned maintenance,Plenfific,Plus,Portfolio Management System,PowerObjects,Pro,Pro-Points,Prodo,Progress,Promaster,Propoints,Proval,Providers,Pyramid, QL,QuantSpark,Qube,QLX,Qlikview,QueryView,Queryview reporting,Quiss, RM865,ROCC,RPs,RSL,Rave,ReAct,Reality,RedkiteCRM,Red Olive,Registered,Registered Social,Rent 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. . . . . . . . . . . .

Modern Way (of web browsing...)

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


When you use Amazon, shop online at your favourite online supermarket or buy electronics at Currys, using the web, we are all used to that web2.0 experience, without probably realising it.

You know what I mean, a marriage of technology & ergonomic design to put the self-serve customer at the heart of the transaction. It's not just easy, the best ones are helpful too, in smoothing our path to doing whatever we need to do. That's why its our choice, rather than trawling the High St. Don't get me wrong the High St does quite often have its real ale attractions. Please feel free to DM me on that one.

Why is it then, that many of our #ukhousing self-serve offerings, look more like we have re-modelled an office form, for customers to get grapple with, on the web? Signing up to a lettings application form is a particular example in point. Just because in the office, we consume a long paper form, then at the end the 'computer says no'.

On the Currys website, if I am looking to spend £350 on a 14" laptop with a i7 processor, after clicking 3 check-boxes, I realise my chance of doing so is very slim.

No bargains to be had here..... Here be dragons...

There's no reason that on the web, all of these online letting systems can do some simple checks first, within maybe 3 or 4 questions, the applicant can see if it's really worth completing the next 25 questions.

I was talking about this recently with a local authority housing team, who are looking at future needs, from a new system. While I have seen a few organisations have signposting at the front of the online lettings process, I struggle to think of one HMS customer self-service portal, where that feature comes right out of the box.

When you think about it, that's pretty surprising, considering how our socialhousing is becoming such an endangered species and we need to 'market' it to different audiences. One example is bigger houses, often made virtually un-lettable, in some areas due to side-effects of bedroom tax legislation.

If you have a facility on your web self-service that clearly shows the types of property potentially available in this way, do DM me to sare. I have seen a few, but not many.

Here is one I would like to highlight from Chevin, part of 'Together Housing' - http://chevin.housingapplications.co.uk/property-search/
A big thank you to my good friend Jim McNeil @TogetherJim for being so good as to highlight the innovation. How close does yours come?

Suppliers should be taking the lead with innovation, to enable the social housing and public sector keep up with web expectations seen elsewhere. Fail to do so and we attract labels we don't really deserve, because our supplied systems fall short and we have not got deep pockets, to make up the design shortfall, with lots of third party web design.

Cmon suppliers, lets see you stepping up to the plate...

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

Related Post: How IDS can help you avoid poor planning...? 

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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.


Kaiser Chiefs - Modern Way.
(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.
File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js. , 07854655009 ,365Agile," """" ",,#UKHousing,#HousingDAY, #HomesForBritain,#InternetOfTenants, #Shout,1st Touch,3squared,Accuserv,Acutence,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,AirWatch,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos, Asprey e-state pro,ActiveHousing,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,App,Associates,ACL,Abritas,AMS,AX,aspireview,Agile365, BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning, Business Process Review,Business social networking, Blockwise, Block wise,BI,BancTec,BluTek,Bluebox, Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Cx,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS , CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,Civica Genero,Contractor Systems,CORE,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,CRM,Crystal Reports,CTI,CTX,Customer Relationship Management,Cashflow, COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting, Community Reward Services, Consilium, Consolidation, Consultancy,Consultant,Contact 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Jive Talking?

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With Channel Shift (or rather Omnichannel), all the rage, I have been in a few meetings lately. Many of these has brought up that curates egg of a subject, 'webchat'. It's the staple of many websites these days, but is it really worth a look, for social housing?

It's an initiative that incurs costs and to some, many of its benefits are not always that obvious. For general sales, I have seen stats suggesting 49%of respondents, in a recent survey cited purchasing as a result of the additional interaction. In social housing however, where a 'sale' is not the key think on our mind, are we seeing its ROI (Return on Investment)?

TVH (Thames Valley Housing) are one user of webchat. On a recent Housing Technology presentation, it was mentioned that it is only really available between 8am & 8pm. I.E. the usual hours that the TVH customer service centre was manned. To have webchat work, it needs to really be triggered by how the customer/tenant is interacting with the site. This is analogous to how sales people detect your movement near a tumble dryer, and instantly extol the virtues of 'crumple-free' shirts and blouses. It can add value if it is answering tenant queries and reducing the overall interaction time, while adding value. Webchat seems very popular on higher value sites too, where some up-sell is involved. E.G. flights, financial services, hotels.

As at least a couple of organisations have pointed out to me, webchat does not channelshift, it needs people, expensive trained customer service bods, in many situations. Hence a few RSL's have decided to give it a wide berth altogether. "Deliver me more self service for lower cost", she said.

Possibly use of webchat as a learning exercise, to decide what needs fixing with your existing website design, is worth a look too. Researching what tenants find problematic, fixing the sources of that in your self-service area and then reducing use of webchat, sounds like a good strategy.

Consider thinking out of the box if your organisation is considering webchat. Rather than channel shifting, you may be introducing another more expensive facility, with additional software costs too!   

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

Related Post: VR is back, are you ready?? 

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The Bee Gees - Jive Talking.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


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