Clear Communication – How Enghouse Keeps EMH Group Tenants in the Know

emh group began its work as East Midlands Housing Association in 1946, building affordable homes for ex-servicemen after the war. Today, it is an independent, profit-for-purpose organisation, which acts as the landlord for 18,000 homes, with specialisms in developing homes in rural communities and in providing housing, care and support services to people with learning disabilities.

Background

The group aims to be among the best housing and care businesses in the country, leading the market as an employer and providing high-quality homes which contribute to sustainable communities. It is committed to helping meet the increasing demand for affordable homes in the region by building 300 new homes every year.

It is key for housing organisations to keep in close contact with residents, resolving queries, ensuring they are aware of the latest government regulations and how that affects their social and economic wellbeing and making certain they are ready to provide help and advice as and when required. emh group take these responsibilities seriously and they are embedded into its core values.

Changes in legislation

In recent years, the demand to keep closely in touch with residents has grown significantly in line with the raft of new Government legislation that has been introduced. As a result of the recent introduction of the bedroom tax, housing association tenants saw their housing benefit limited by the government, if the council decided that they had a ‘spare’ bedroom.

Further to this, the introduction of Universal Credit is already having a significant impact on housing organisations, as benefit is now being paid directly to some residents rather than to the social landlord – i.e. emh Group itself. This means that residents have to pay rent to the group rather than having it automatically sent as was previously the case.

All of this is making it increasingly important that housing associations can engage proactively with tenants; provide relevant help and advice through outbound interactions and react quickly to inbound calls and requests through a wide range of digital channels.

Fortunately, using the EICC solution enables emh group to do all of this quickly and efficiently. The system’s outbound dialling capability, for instance, allows the contact centre team to gauge residents’ level of understanding and then point them in the direction of the income management or financial inclusion teams if they have specific queries.

Solution

The EICC solution’s outbound dialling capability allows the contact centre team to gauge residents’ level of understanding and then point them in the direction of the income management or financial inclusion teams if they have specific queries.

“Our current target is to resolve 83% of contacts at the first point of contact. We use codes within EICC to create reports which tell us how many calls we have matured and resolve and how many of each relate to either repairs or housing.”
Helen Bradford, Head of ICT,
EMH GROUP

Having to manage the needs of a large number of residents makes it important for emh Group to put in place a multichannel capability. Inbound and outbound voice calls and emails are widely used. The organisation also makes extensive use of the system’s callback facility, particularly beneficial for residents for whom English is not their first language.

They can simply select a convenient time, day and language and the EICC solution arranges the callback at that time. And simply using EICC to offer a callback helps emh Group to reduce queues, call times and abandonment rates.

Results

The ultimate object of any contact centre system implementation should be to improve the customer experience. Technology, and in particular the EICC solution is playing a major role in helping the emh group to achieve this. Expert and highly skilled staff are of course key but they need to be backed by the right technology implemented within a streamlined contact centre that can deal with queries received and whatever means of contact that is used.

As a Social Landlord, emh group is focused on engaging closely with your customers; helping them to resolve any issues and concerns they may have and providing the best possible customer service. In today’s environment, achieving that is all about putting in place the optimum mix of expert engagement and powerful functionally rich technology and that’s where the Enghouse Interactive EICC solution really comes into its own.