Why housing needs to go digital–and fast

James Caspell  |  Neighbourhood director for Lancaster West Estate

In London, using Uber, Deliveroo or Amazon Prime is not unusual. Why then do so many housing providers restrict service delivery to 9-5, face-to-face or telephone for residents? That’s not to say that those channels aren’t valuable and important, but there remains a complacency which needs to be challenged if we are to deliver the high-quality housing services which all housing organisations are committed to.

Digital transformation will bring about the seismic changes in the housing sector, driven partly by pressure to deliver cost savings. However, the benefits for those living in social housing could be extraordinary if this becomes the primary focus rather than an afterthought.

This will enable a resident to pay their rent or raise a repair when it suits them, rather than when it suits the housing provider.

It means web chat and artificial intelligence can address general enquiries, whilst automatic translation tools and screen readers ensure services are more accessible to all community groups.

Making a process more efficient doesn't even mean that you need to cut the cost in the overall provision of service, in fact, it is quite the opposite and it is possible to identify savings to be reinvested elsewhere in front-line services. You only have to look at the positive results that Lean process improvements have had on Japanese companies, who have adopted and used these methods.

It's no coincidence that the NHS and TfL, amongst others, are adopting similar approaches to reducing inefficiencies, to reinvest in their front line services. In housing, there is the opportunity to deliver a lot of very quick wins that the customer can see the benefit from straight away. This means services are delivered more quickly, more smoothly and with a better end-product, whether it’s a repair or something more complex like addressing ASB.

By reducing inefficiencies and mapping and improving the customer journey we can reduce wasted time and money, which can be reinvested in front line services ensuring face to face provision for those who need it and digital access for those that don't.

If you look at the threat to guaranteed income that Universal Credit brings to housing providers, they've gone from getting a very large chunk of their money from the DWP, in the form of Housing Benefit, and now they are having to have individual conversations with thousands of customers, with no real integration between housing providers and DWP.

This means that you now have to work an awful lot harder to collect the rental income that safeguards tenancies, increasing the transaction costs, which in many ways is a move towards a more analogue approach rather than a digital approach. This approach is financially unsustainable if Universal Credit is going to continue to be rolled out.

The solution will be for housing providers to look at their transactions as a whole, and to identify the number of transactions or service requests that are very simple and could be delivered through self-service; for example, checking rent balances or reporting a repair.

Most of the sector is still a long way from producing a mobile-friendly website, but if they had one with a secure online portal, their customers could access these types of service 24 hours a day, which could really bring down the average transaction costs and protect front-line services. Sutton Housing Partnership worked with residents to produce a new user-friendly website and portal and in 9 months moved the total proportion of self-service transactions up from 9 per cent to 42 per cent.

Other sectors are already using this technology, for example, doctors surgeries use automated prescription requests sent directly to pharmacies now which saves journeys and time for millions of people. In housing, we still, as a sector, have a lot to do to yield the benefits of digital transformation and that is just to take advantage of the technology that has been available for years, let alone being at the forefront of public service provision.

In the future, artificial intelligence (AI) will become heavily used within the sector, as well as the Internet of Things. In terms of AI, FinTech has had some great success with social networking platforms such as Facebook messenger and Transport for London (TfL) also utilise well with their own chatbot. TfL customers can plan travel routes and find travel times all on their phone using their location data without having to find a member of staff, yet to the customer, it feels like you are getting a personalised experience.

In local authorities, why couldn't all councils look to cut costs by using one payment portal for paying rent across all providers? Greater digital harmonisation across the housing sector would benefit everybody.

The ability to offer more services digitally would reduce costs across the board whilst also improving overall customer experience. If you make a digital channel easy to use consumers will use it the same way they are currently doing so in retail. Customers are now happy to buy their clothes online, however, through adaptation, many high street shops have also managed to keep trading and remain relevant.

In housing, the customers that need the face to face support should always be able to get it and the savings that you release from getting the majority of customers to solve small problems through self-service would actually allow housing associations and local authorities to better help those in need, like disabled or older residents. More broadly, expensive static offices will just be seen as overheads in the next 10 years and I don’t think they will be used in the same way, with shared collaborative workspaces being the norm.

A lot of housing management is about interactions rather than being desk-bound and there are many ways to interact with colleagues and customers. Social housing residents are no different in having increased expectations. They are consumers of these apps already, and at some stage, they will have the same demands from their housing providers. The question is, how many housing organisations are ready to meet that challenge?