The Power of Omnichannel for the Social Housing Sector
The UK social housing industry faces growing scrutiny to provide a high level of service for both tenants and employees during difficult economic times. In these challenging circumstances, housing associations need to leverage the latest technologies, such as omnichannel, to assist delivering excellent customer service, driving efficiency across operations, and supporting changing regulations.
By embracing omnichannel software, housing associations can seamlessly communicate with tenants across all their preferred channels, driving convenience and increasing tenant confidence from their initial communication and throughout their journey. By positioning your housing association as open to all channels, it enhances accessibility, collaboration and customer retention.
Benefits of omnichannel for housing sector
What exactly can omnichannel offer the housing industry? Here are the key benefits and reasons why more and more organisations are choosing to invest in this powerful software.
Improve customer experience
Allow tenants to contact you via their preferred channel, giving them choice and convenience without impacting their experience. Omnichannel supports voice, webchat, email, SMS, social media, and more – to provide customers with a unified and consistent experience across all touchpoints. This is viewed and managed in one single interface for maximum ease and productivity for your agents.
Empower your agents
Omnichannel for your contact centre provides your agents with one simple interface to manage and resolve tenants’ queries, cutting the frustration of jumping between tabs and screens. It also presents all the relevant and latest information agents will require to deliver a personalised and excellent experience. Tools such as AI, direct call routing, real-time notifications, automation and chatbots can further support your team to be available for more complex queries, balancing technology and human interaction appropriately.
Flexible, scalable, and integrates with other housing software
Omnichannel is a cloud-based solution offering flexibility and scalability, so you only pay for the users you need at any time, expanding or reducing this according to your business growth. It also integrates with other housing software that you would use daily including CRM systems, website/apps, housing management and repairs systems and more.
Gain insights and analytics for continuous improvement
Understand and analyse your customer data, behaviour and issues with the detailed reports and dashboards. Measuring metrics and having the insights at your fingertips will allow you to make informed decisions to manage, improve and drive efficiencies across the call centre operations. Advanced analytics across all channels that will track the full customer journey for you to better meet the evolving tenants needs.
How omnichannel overcomes common housing challenges
Housing associations must adapt to the changing requirements of tenants and economic positioning. Whilst there’s a number of challenges ahead, omnichannel technology can greatly support to drive the future of housing.
Greater transparency and trust
Communication is a two-way process, so whilst you’re open to residents raising queries with you across a variety of channels, omnichannel can also greatly assist your outbound making it easier for you to contact and update tenants. With an increased level of communication, you promote greater transparency and trust, whether it’s regarding rent, repairs or an existing query.
Reduce wait times & improve repair process
By embracing communication across all channels and taking a more tenant-centric approach queries and maintenance issues can quickly be responded to and resolved. Omnichannel offers additional features such as live video that can remotely diagnose or fix issues, reducing the need for home visits. Reduce call waiting times with enhanced self-service or automation options for tasks such as bookings, payment reminders, feedback or common queries.
Support Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) & regulations
Introduced in April 2023, the Tenant Satisfaction Measures ensures the housing sector is continually meeting the needs of tenants. This has a particular focus on trust and communication in light of recent years and events. Omnichannel puts tenants’ communication at the forefront whilst supporting call centre teams to deliver proactive support and optimise processes.
Gain & improve data
Not only will you have live monitoring and analysis of communication across all channels, but you can utilise omnichannel to strengthen your feedback loop, requesting reviews and comments to measure performance. In any business, gathering, managing and understanding data is of value, but for housing associations it’s critical to effective decision making now and in the future.
Boost employee retention and development
Customer experience goes hand in hand with employee engagement. A happy employee will result in a happy customer, and vice versa. Omnichannel enables a positive employee experience with access to multiple channels in one software and with other integrations your agents will be equipped with all the information and tools they need, at their fingertips. With the powerful features of omnichannel managers can use data to support employee’s personal development, training and needs.
Why Matrix247
We understand the challenges housing associations face in the evolving landscape and how boosting customer experience can have profound impact on your customers, employees and business operations. By embracing omnichannel solutions bespoke for the housing industry, you’ll gain powerful tools and functionality to transform how you engage with tenants, collect valuable data, meet compliance targets, drive efficiencies and position you as a leading organisation.
Equally, we take pride in our customer experience, working in partnership with housing associations to ensure technology works for your specific needs. We are consultative led, spending time to understand your organisation before continuing to progress the roadmap of implementing omnichannel.
FAQ’s
What is the difference between omnichannel and multichannel contact centres?
It can be a little confusing to understand how multichannel and omnichannel differ as they are often used interchangeably. However, there’s a real difference. Omnichannel allows the management of all communication channels in one simple location, whereas multichannel would require switching between applications.
How much does omnichannel for housing typically cost?
The cost of omnichannel solutions for the housing industry can vary on the technology provider, the number of users you require, and the functionality/features required specifically for your business. With a large number of options on the market it can be difficult to understand which is right for you and the level of investment required. This is the importance of our role here at Matrix247 as we know the market and will get under the skin of your business to identify your needs. Ultimately, the right omnichannel software will be an invaluable investment that will provide significant improvements and efficiencies across your call centre operations.
Is omnichannel contact centre software secure?
Due to omnichannel being a cloud-based solution, it naturally offers a high level of security. The specific security components differ slightly between omnichannel software solutions, so it is advisable to ask this question at point of demonstrations for full clarity.
Will the omnichannel software integrate with other housing tech applications?
Yes, omnichannel integrates well with other applications that you will typically use every day, such as CRM, housing management systems and other commonly used systems. Again, there can be some minor differences depending on the software you implement so ensure you have this information upfront before making a decision.
Are you ready to explore how omnichannel software can transform your customer experience, improve your call centre operations and drive efficiencies across your housing association? Book your live demo today.
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