Housing associations across the UK are experiencing record levels of arrears debt. Tackling it is a challenge even in the most stable of economic climates, so how can income teams actually reduce arrears in a sector where it continues to rise?
At Voicescape we recognise what the sector is up against and have developed intelligent, automated solutions that empower our customers to find better ways of working, transform tenant engagement and challenge the prevailing belief that arrears must increase. And what better way to share their experiences than by inviting three of our customers to join us on stage at the social housing sector's biggest event, Housing 2024?
Bucking the trend in housing arrears
Joining an esteemed programme of talks and sessions, we took over Housing 2024’s Insights Stage just after lunchtime on day two. Our Head of Account Management Nicola Brown introduced three Voicescape customers who shared their journeys and successes with our multi-award-winning AI-powered Caseload Manager solution.
By empowering them to engage with their communities more effectively amidst challenging economic times, we provided these leading social landlords with the means to not only maintain arrears levels but reduce them. Here’s what they shared on the day…
Dave Lockerman, Director of Housing Operations at Stonewater
First up, Dave broke down his team’s journey to overcome their challenges around income management with Voicescape Caseload Manager.
Over the last 18 months, Stonewater have seen a significant increase in the number of customers who receive means-tested support with housing costs – with 49% of their 82,000 customers now receiving full support. Their previous income analytics product would present around 4,000 cases each week, with 400 allocated per officer and no foresight or indication of which cases required intervention. As a result, only half of cases weren’t being looked at on a weekly basis and the team quickly became disengaged.
Naturally, their team sought a new income management solution, so they went to market to find the best-in-class solution which would help them support the customers who needed it most by:
- Presenting only those cases that require intervention
- Automating outbound communication for cases where that method would have the greatest chance of success
- Categorising and prioritising cases based on their risk profile
Stonewater found what they were looking for with Voicescape Caseload Manager. After working closely with Dave Lockerman to create a business case, we were able to set a challenging target to reduce gross debt by £1m within 12 months. Following implementation, Caseload Manager’s AI analysed and identified the risks associated with each customer to present only the t cases they ‘needed’ to see, segmenting them into ‘no action required’, ‘action required’, and ‘automated contact’.
Now, Stonewater’s officers are manually managing around 115 cases, a massive 71% reduction in workload from the previous 400. Caseloads are now manageable, the team are enthusiastic, and Stonewater has achieved a 0.7% reduction in gross debt to the tune of £1.37 million. Dave spoke of a real step change in using our solution and “bucking the trend in a difficult climate to trigger the reduction”.
Ladi Joseph, Account Manager at The Hyde Group
Next, our audience at the Insight Stage heard how Ladi and his income team at The Hyde Group went live with Voicescape Collections in 2021 and, following its success, expanded into Caseload Manager in 2023. They first launched to their general needs tenure followed by their homeowner tenure a few months later.
The Hyde Group’s income officers previously managed around 1,400 properties each, 400 of which were in arrears. Similarly to Dave’s team, they struggled to get through their weekly caseload using their previous product. So, began looking at how Caseload Manager might help, analysing and testing the arrears caseload, determining ROI targets and tailoring the implementation ready for going live.
Speaking at Housing 2024, Ladi outlined three key benefits from using our solution:
- Automation – Voicescape enables them to contact more customers with the correct SMS message strategy in line with their Standard Operating Procedure without having to load via SFTP
- Tailored workload – since going live, Collections officers are now presented with on average 168% fewer weekly caseloads (130-150 compared to 350-400)
- KPIs/targets met – The Hyde Group finished FY2024 at 4.81% arrears, well ahead of their target of 5.3% and below the £13m arrears target.
It was also revealing to hear how easily the team at Hyde adapted to using Caseload Manager., shifting from manually analysing spreadsheets to being ‘fed’ priority cases they needed to engage directly. Naturally then, officers had to develop confidence around the data provided, as their trust grew in the AI’s insights over their own manual findings. And over time, the more faith they placed in the system, the better results they saw – and the more the solution’s machine learning capabilities learned about the nuances and finer details of their customer behaviours and actions required.
Rob Davies, Head of Customer Accounts & Money Advice at Onward Homes
Finally, Rob Davies took the microphone to highlight Onward Homes’ journey to becoming a sector-leading social-impact organisation. He also outlined their ‘Digital Onward’ strategy to become a fully digital housing association as well as ambitions to actively engage with technologies to deliver more personalised customer engagement.
Rob explained how the volume and nature of customer demands was changing immensely, and that Onward Homes’ previous setup wasn’t fit to deal with these challenges. They needed to think differently about how they used resources, which led to a radical large-scale shift in their income function – including team restructuring and new ways of working with patches and tenure to achieve objectives.
Onward Homes sought external providers that could help them accelerate these ambitions, and found alignment and mutual understanding with Voicescape. It was clear that we shared their enthusiasm for thinking differently and creatively about the ways in which customer engagement can be improved. Productive collaborations with our team and theirs were underpinned by a problem-solving culture and culminated in going live with Caseload Manager to deliver arrears analytics and AI-driven case prioritisation.
Here are a few key takeaways from Rob’s experience with the solution:
- Caseload Manager was an “easy sell” to the team, thanks to a smooth implementation process and ongoing support
- Despite a period of significant disruption and change, income performance remained steady – bucking the sector trend of increasing arrears
- Engagement with customers continued as productivity dipped
- Subsequent to Caseload Manager’s team efficiency gains, Onward Homes has seen record-breaking Money Advice referrals and income generation– over the course of 2023 they saw an £800,000 positive shift (£2.6 to £3.4 million) in the amount of income they could generate for customers through Money Advice work, putting them in a better position to live well and sustain tenancies
Rob referred to Caseload Manager as “a coworker” who sits within and alongside his colleagues to help them through what was an intense and radical change process – giving them the capacity to focus on more complex cases and provide tailored support for those tenants who need it most.
Tackle your arrears challenge head-on with Voicescape
We’d like to say a huge thank you to Housing 2024 for having us, and to Dave Lockerman, Ladi Joseph and Rob Davies for sharing their insightful best practices and success stories. We look forward to developing our support to all three of their organisations and finding new ways to help them continually buck the arrears trend, engage with their communities and ultimately sustain tenancies.
If you’d like to learn more about how our product suite can help you go against the grain to reduce debt, please get in touch with our team today.