Enghouse Helps Rural Housing Specialist Achieve 100% All Round

The well-used terms “sustainable” and “affordable” are not just empty words for Hastoe Housing. It prides itself on finding innovative solutions to enable local people to remain within their communities and now owns and manages over 7,000 homes in over 70 local authority areas. In 2011 they completed their 200th village scheme, confirming its position as the UK’s leading specialist rural housing association.

Hastoe Housing customers are made up of leaseholders, shared owners or tenants and are spread across a wide geographical area between Cornwall and Devon in the west, and Norfolk and Lincolnshire in the east. From these locations, it’s easy to understand one of its major challenges. Getting to see customers can mean a long drive, so high-quality interactions by phone or email are paramount.

As Amanda Harris, head of customer services, explains: “We offer a wide range of services to our local communities which is managed through a small contact centre of just eight advisers and a portal for online self-service. But our main interactions are by phone so it’s vital to have the right system in place to ensure calls are handled effectively.”

“Also, as our call rate is very dependent on events such as bad weather conditions where we have marked peaks and troughs, we needed a system that could handle a sudden surge of calls. Our previous call routing system was causing some dissatisfaction and wasn’t robust enough for the job in hand and we also needed to improve reporting capabilities.”

Hastoe Housing turned to G3 Comms to find a solution that would address some of the challenges they were facing as an organisation. The solution they choose was Enghouse Interactive Communications Center. To find out more please download the case study.