Digitalising the housing sector: enabling your team and improving customer service

The housing sector is one that has been, for the most part, slow to adapt to the ever-evolving technical world we live and work within. The digitalisation of the sector presents an opportunity for businesses to improve employee productivity and better serve customers.

At our Michael Page event, ‘Housing goes digital: the shift towards self-service,’ Nick Atkin, CEO at Halton Housing, shared his insights and first-hand experience of digitalising his organisation, how this has enabled his teams to provide better service and ultimately drive customer satisfaction while reducing transitional costs.  

Why go digital?

Customers now expect digital services, and in almost all service sectors that is what they get. When talking about why he chose to go digital, Nick had this to say: “We knew that there were better ways of transacting with customers as well as a myriad of opportunities to automate many processes within our systems. By improving our services and the way in which our customers access them, we could drive efficiencies across the business and focus on our really vulnerable customers who needed more intensive support from us.”
Since the introduction of their Digital First strategy, Halton Housing has seen some great results.
  • Approximately 70% of households are now contacting the team via digital channels 
  • Over 87% of all customer-led transactions are now also carried out digitally
  • 40% of all repairs are now reported digitally
  • Some 99% of rent balance queries are carried out via digital platforms 
  • There has been a reduction in incoming and outgoing calls by over 60%
As a result of this, transaction costs have reduced from approximately £15 to less than £1 and there has been a 50% reduction in the number of people in the customer service team and those employees have been reallocated to other areas of the business to provide more intensive support for the most vulnerable of customers. In fact, there have been quite a few shifts in staffing as a result of and to support the digital strategy.
Staffing has increased in the following areas:
  • Tenancy support +200%
  • Tenancy Enforcement +200% 
  • Debt Recovery +20%
  • Welfare benefits +60%
Team sizes have decreased in these business functions:
  • Customer service  -50%
  • Housing officers -100%

Working smarter 

Nick believes that work is something you do and not somewhere you go. In line with this, Halton Housing operates an agile approach to working. In fact, there are no desks. Instead, each employee, depending on the needs of their role, has two devices from which they can work wherever they work best or where and when the business requires them to. This has also enabled the company to be much more responsive and flexible in their approach to serving customer and to better meet their needs.
He highlighted that: “Each and every colleague is critical to successfully delivering digital transformation. The importance of providing employees with the right tools and support to be part of the journey cannot be underestimated.”
When recruiting, a key focus for Halton Housing is attitude. Dynamic working, away from a desk for the most part, is not a commonplace practice and so it is important that the right people are brought in to support the structure. “For some, this [working from mobile devices] is a real shift from what they may have been used to and so we ensure new people joining us are comfortable and confident with this way of working. Key to this is the right interpersonal skills as well as being able to work anywhere from any device,” Nick explained.

Digitalising your organisation

Introducing a digital strategy takes time and a commitment from senior leaders to adopt new ways of working and invest in the right tools to facilitate it. Nick describes digital transformation as a journey and to help other housing organisations to adopt a digital approach to business, Halton Housing has partnered with HACT to develop Digibite, due to be launched late this month, a methodology for the affordable housing sector to implement digital transformation.
View the full Q&A with Nick and gain more insight into the success of digitalisation at Halton Housing.
 
If you would like to discuss how we can help with your recruitment processes in housing, contact your local Michael Page office. Alternatively, submit a job spec and one of our specialist consultants will be in touch. 
Tom Neely
Senior Manager, Michael Page
T: +441618290397