We will deliver continuing efficiencies to achieve improved value for money
Using technology to improve services
In a move to make our organisation more agile and give staff up to date information about our residents and our homes, we have implemented a new housing management system called Civica Cx. The system also includes integrated customer relationship management, which will allow us to provide a consistently high level of service to residents. Information is securely available to staff to help them tailor our services to an individual’s needs. With more processes being driven electronically, more services can be offered online in real time and at the touch of a button. Not only do we expect to see savings with the Cx system, we also expect to see customer satisfaction increase.
User satisfaction
Feedback Summary
Your staff submitted feedback on 20 cases of which 19 were positive, 1 neutral and 0 negative, giving an average score for this period of 95% (previous period 95%)
“If someone rings about a repair request, any staff member can now look at the repair log and give a resident the reassurance that the issue has been logged rather than asking them to get in touch with repairs team. Also, being able to look at other modules at the same time like repair requests and rent accounts has made a big difference as often someone will call with a number of queries and we can address them all quickly.”
Glenda Tichana - Business and Performance Analyst
New IT system
The new IT contract put in place October 2019 is already bringing improved efficiencies to the way we work. Staff helped to develop the system by giving feedback and sharing their experiences of the IT systems. We asked the potential suppliers to explain how they would address this feedback and improve staff experience. We now have a responsive support service with no restrictions on when and how we use it, as well as a flexible, cost effective and secure infrastructure hosted directly with Microsoft.
The system is easy to use and we now have less IT support calls coming from staff, giving them more time to focus on their work. Infrastructure costs have also reduced with savings forecasted to be over £30,000 in the next financial year.
Adapting to change
Mobile working has continued to play a strong part in our IT service. The new IT contract emphasises ‘Cloud Computing’ and our core services are now hosted directly with Microsoft’s Office 365 platform. Staff have the equipment and are able to access these core services from any location with an internet connection, which allowed us to adapt quickly to the Covid-19 pandemic.
With a responsibility to our residents, it was essential that services continued albeit in a different form. Full mobile working was adopted for all staff with telephone services being diverted from traditional telephone handsets to call centre headsets. New applications were implemented to digitise our paper-based processes so that documents could be available from any location and signed remotely. Video conferencing has become the new way to hold meetings both internally and externally, and email has become the preferred approach when distributing communications to our residents.