The Sovini Group delivers a growing range of world-class construction, property, and facilities services across the UK's public and private sectors, including a number of social and not-for-profit enterprises, employing more than 800 staff. One Vision Housing, part of the Sovini Group, manages more than 14,000 homes across the north-west of England, with more being built each year, and actively works to make a positive difference to the communities it is involved in.
Working with social housing residents across the north-west, One Vision Housing, part of the Sovini Group, rely on seamless communication with their tenants, whether that's for routine administration, scheduling maintenance, or ensuring emergencies are dealt with quickly and effectively. The need for a secure, resilient, and highly intuitive platform that would support close collaboration between advisors and communication with residents was further driven home during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when face-to-face meetings became impossible.
As a result, once lockdowns ended, the decision was made to seek out a next-gen unified communications platform that would transform the way Sovini supports their residents, replacing the legacy PBX system. Having already successfully adopted Microsoft Teams, gaining buy-in from employees across the company, the resulting RFP sought to build on this success. This meant exploring how processes could be further optimised by tools like call recording and analytics, with ample scope for future development. The employee experience was also critically important - the new system needed to be as user-friendly as possible, allowing advisors to focus on the needs of residents, especially those considered vulnerable.
Exponential-e's well-established contact centre and unified communications pedigree, comprehensive service wrap, and consultative approach that focused on Sovini's operational strategy made a strong impression throughout the tender process. As a result, they were awarded the contract, with a dedicated account team immediately beginning work to establish themselves as Sovini's key communications partner.
Working closely with Sovini's own IT team and customer service team leaders, Exponential-e began scoping out the new customer service platform. Service continuity was a critical priority, with measures established to ensure advisors would be able to continue working in the way they were accustomed to, while enjoying a range of additional tools to support successful resolutions. To this end, as the project specifications evolved, in-depth training was provided for staff via Microsoft Teams. Based on these conversations, comprehensive user guides were created and distributed.
Key to the success of the project was ongoing consultation around potential opportunities for improvement, which strong partnership between both organisations and the inherent flexibility and scalability of Exponential-e's contact centre has continued to support following the go-live date. In particular, the solution's ability to deliver bespoke, real-time reporting, drawing on data generated across multiple channels.
Utilising the high volumes of data generated throughout interactions with residents to optimise service quality and ensure advisors are properly supported has become a key element of Sovini's day-to-day operations. This has proven especially beneficial during interactions with vulnerable residents, as team leaders are able to monitor the quality of interactions - both live and through analytics - to ensure appropriate training is provided for advisors, and that residents are always properly supported.
This is very much an evolving process, as Sovini's teams continue to explore the full range of the contact centre solution's capabilities and how they can complement and enhance their strategies for optimising service quality across existing channels, and those in the process of being deployed (social media, for example). This includes automating routine processes (where possible and appropriate) and integration with other systems, to achieve a holistic view of the entire operation.
In this way, Sovini continue to utilise leading-edge technology as a means of enhancing the expert support and personal attention their residents have come to expect from their advisors, rather than as a substitute for it. As their teams work with their Exponential-e account team to identify and execute further improvements in the years ahead, the full potential of this new model for customer service excellence will continue to reveal itself, helping establish new standards of best practice across the entire housing sector.
As an agile organisation it is essential that our systems enable us to support our staff working remotely. This solution very much supports that as well as providing all the necessary functionality we require for a busy, customer-focused contact centre environment.
Jan Conroy
Head of Customer Services, One Vision Housing
The actual migration from one system to the other was seamless for both the customer and the team using it. Our advisors adapted with ease and much prefer the functionality of the new system. There's much more information available to them, and it's very user friendly. When you're handling calls it is important to have all the information you need at your fingertips to provide excellent customer service and this system supports that.
Jan Conroy
Head of Customer Services, One Vision Housing
If I was to sum it up, I think it's a really great partnership. It doesn't feel like a contractor and a client relationship, it feels like a partnership relationship and that works very, very well.
Jan Conroy
Head of Customer Services, One Vision Housing
Helping housing associations drive digital initiatives that transform the tenant experience, underpinned by robust data security
In the space of just a few short years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gone from being a somewhat niche field, to front and centre in the public consciousness. With the rise of ChatGPT and similar platforms, there is much speculation about where this technology is heading, and what its impact will be on our personal and professional lives. Indeed, organisations across numerous sectors are already exploring the different ways it can be utilised to reduce costs, optimise efficiency, and improve service quality.
There's no doubt that the current economic environment has led to feelings of instability, in both our personal and professional lives. Consumers are feeling the pinch, and with rising inflation and interest rates, they will have no choice but to curtail their spending. The impact on business is similarly far-reaching. Aside from the economic impact of the reduction in spending, there is the very real situation that both employees and customers will be experiencing stress in their personal lives. As a result, many organisations across the public and private sectors are evaluating how to best maintain their service quality under these difficult circumstances.
We've probably all encountered what we consider to be poor customer service through a contact centre, whether it's calling your utilities provider, banking, mortgages, or just everyday online shopping.
There have been many excuses for poor service through the pandemic due to ill-prepared home working solutions. Those should be behind us now, although that's likely the topic of a further blog, as many companies are still leaning on this excuse!
How Actionable Data Drives Sales, Improves Employee Satisfaction, and Enhances the Customer Experience
One of the key components we discuss with organisations when defining their contact centre needs is their data: the data the organisation requires, the data the solution can report on, and the tools available to interpret this data.
