On 10th October 2024, Voicescape customers from across the country came together for our annual Customer Conference. Every year, this event provides a chance for social landlords of all shapes and sizes to share familiar challenges, new opportunities, and a collective vision for a more proactive approach to tenant engagement – where landlords and tenants are brought closer together by the power of voice.
In one way or another, everyone in attendance has opened new doors for their teams and external communities through Voicescape innovation – with four housing associations taking the stage to speak about their successes. But, we recognise that there’s more to be done, and so do our customers…
Relieving sector pressures
In a challenging housing landscape with compounding socioeconomic and regulatory pressure, the need for continuous collaboration and development has never been stronger. Together, we need to be brave in our approach, be tenant-obsessed with every step, and appreciate that change is constant – remembering to get the basics right along the way.
From income recovery and compliance to tenant engagement and well-being, Voicescape has developed solutions to help our customers connect with communities and drive incremental value with the resources currently available to them. This conference was their chance to share those journeys with the sector.
Doing more with less in income recovery
Voicescape Collections and Caseload Manager form a key part of our product suite, where automation, behavioural insights and AI combine to empower our customers to do more with less around arrears recovery and income analytics.
Take Yorkshire Housing, for example. They combined Collections and a pay-by-link integration with our partners at allpay to help them recover £450k from FTAs and failed direct debits. Conference attendees also heard how they’re building on this by bringing Caseload Manager on board – with early indications showing a 35% reduction in caseloads.
Compliance, safety and repairs
The need for more proactive approaches has never been higher around compliance, safety and repairs. Avoidable issues can be prevented, and new ways of working powered by automation can and are helping customers solve significant end-to-end process inefficiencies – leading to better care, better conversations and better outcomes.
Platform Housing Group are seeing exactly that by using Voicescape Compliance. Through automated contact, where the tenant could take more ownership of the appointment-booking process, they achieved an 18% increase in access for gas servicing with 96.4% tenant satisfaction. They also achieved a reduction from 41% to 17% for EICR (Electrical Testing) no-access.
Listening and responding to the voice of the tenant
The Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) have triggered a collective review of how landlords are thinking about and approaching surveys. Meanwhile, tenant engagement is more important than ever with the cost-of-living crisis causing vulnerable tenants to require more focused support. Through Voicescape Engage, we’re helping our customers drive the coordination, action, analysis and change needed to connect with communities in meaningful ways.
One such customer is Thirteen Group. They ran multiple campaigns with our Engage solution to understand tenant demand across their housing stock, streamline the terminations process, and gain more clarity on tenants’ needs and support requirements over DMC issues. Collectively, this has enabled Thirteen to be more effective in serving their tenants’ needs and save up to 11 hours a week in colleague time.
A purpose-driven roadmap for the future
Following a successful day of insight-sharing and networking, we shifted our focus to the future. Voicescape’s Managing Director, Gary Haynes and Technical Director, Steven Skarratt, recapped the latest updates available within our product suite and the planned developments on the horizon that our customer base can take advantage of.
The last 12 months have reiterated our commitment to continuous improvement in the way we segment and develop our products to solve on-the-ground challenges. During this time we have implemented a number of enhancements, and have a lot more excitement additions to come in the near future too.
Gary and Steven also lifted the lid on a brand-new solution coming soon, which will act as the missing piece in your income analytics stack and represents a further breakthrough in arrears management. Contact your Account Manager for more information on how you can benefit from this in the near future.
Lasting thoughts
Voicescape exists to help our customers connect with their communities using data science, behavioural insights and digital technology. Automation is there to make meaningful human communications easier – while removing human contact where it isn’t needed.
This year’s conference demonstrated the positive outcomes that our customers and their communities can achieve when we work together with this sentiment in mind. We recognised that change is constant, but the power of the voice remains the same. By getting your communities talking and opening up meaningful two-way communications, tenants feel supported and trust is reciprocated, creating a more harmonious and impactful relationship.
If you’d like to know more about how Voicescape can help you maximise engagement and build more trust with your communities, please get in touch with our team today.