Local authorities, housing associations, and other types of public services are always under intense scrutiny and stress to deliver much-needed services to the general public, but often on limited resources and capacity. There is a way for a local authority or local housing association to increase the effectiveness of operations, and that is by taking on the professional assistance of a call handling service to deal with the general public, manage queries and requests, and to ensure the entire process is as smooth as possible for both parties. With this approach you can begin to improve the standard of service to the general public, whilst allowing in-house council and housing association professional to deal with their own personal workload.
Of course, there are different requirements in different councils and different areas of public service, so let’s take a look at a housing association as a prime example of how a contact centre could help manage the daily aspects of maintenance and repair issues that come up with many people.
A housing association is the de facto landlord for those living within the properties that it owns. Now, one area in which a professional contact centre could be of assistance is with the maintenance and repairs process. If a person calls the housing association with a leaking roof, or a broken washing machine, there is a pressing need to work on those problems as soon as possible.
If a housing association is understaffed, or at full capacity, some of these calls might never be received, or placed to the back of a general pile of requests. With the support of a contact centre however, you can start to see a more focused and streamlined process to deal with any requests of this nature.
When a call comes in, it can be quickly categorised and placed in the correct queue to the right department. Alternatively, the team hired to deal with customer calls can be involved in the whole process. So, for instance, a call comes in about a broken washing machine. The call operative will take all the required information, cross-check with the housing association database, and then find an engineer off the approved list to book in for an appointment. The operative will then be in charge of keeping track of this entire process, keeping the tenant and the housing association informed at all times.
You can see immediately how this can be a great help to any housing association, and when you think of the many pressures faced by local councils and other public services, this type of assistance and support could be invaluable in helping the general public get the help they are urgently looking for, in most cases. A professional contact centre team with the experience of managing large volumes of calls and dealing with sensitive information and data, is best positioned to funnel calls to the proper channels in an expedient manner, helping clients get to where they need to be without adding stress to the situation any further.
