Estuary Housing Association improves customer experience using self-service
The customer
Estuary Housing Association manage over 4,700 homes covering every district in Essex, as well as the three outer East London Boroughs. Based out of their head office in Southend on Sea, they are committed to the provision of good quality housing, care and support services which help develop sustainable communities.
To ensure their commitment to this core value, they identified the need to re-shape their service offering after the pandemic, to provide enhanced support and deliver the best service possible to their customers. During this process, a range of projects were identified, and the communications and project teams approached their long-term digital partner VerseOne, to help them bring these projects to fruition.
The VerseOne team has been our long-term digital partner for 10 years. We came to them with some ideas around how we can deliver a better service for our customers, and they used their previous experience and industry know-how to help shape this project into what it is today.
Gemma Tidd, Senior Communications Designer, Estuary Housing Association
The challenge
Estuary had a customer portal in place that was being underutilised and lacked core features and functionality that would help them deliver an exceptional customer experience.
With the funding in place to undergo a brand transformation that would bring with it a rebrand and a refreshed website, they saw that a new and comprehensive self-service portal could help them deliver the level of service they desired. They conducted a series of feedback surveys and identified the needs of their customers to help shape their requirements for an efficient and effective self-service customer portal.
This transformation would enable them to provide a 24/7 service, empower customers to report and book repairs, provide a quick and accessible way to pay rent and provide personalisation by using features like pre-populated forms.
These changes would further build on the improvements and processes already in place, to align with their goals of providing enhanced support for their current and future customer base.
The solution
Estuary worked with the VerseOne Team to identify the services that needed to be delivered and to workshop the requirements and nuances of their digital transformation project.
The solution needed to be able to integrate with their existing Microsoft Dynamics system to create a front-of-house CRM that provides a connected view of their customers. This would deliver operational efficiencies by ensuring one source of truth for customer and asset information, whilst ensuring compliance around data governance.
Once the baseline was set, the team set to work on implementing a variety of features, delivered through a 24/7 Estuary branded portal that enables customers to:
• Pay Rent
• Complete pre-populated forms
• Watch DIY repair videos
• Raise a complaint/compliment and other service requests
• Show household occupants
• Set communication preferences
• View and Download Rent Statements
• View and edit contact details
• Report a repair and view Repairs History
• Report ASB
• Have their customer ambassador sign in 'as a customer' to provide extra support and transact on their behalf
The results
Since implementation, Estuary has seen 26% of customers using the portal in its first year. Whereas standalone portals typically only show the customer their tenancy, rent and repairs – so the customer has to call the housing provider to make changes, or request a new service - Estuary’s new advanced self-service portal integrates bi-directionally to enable customers to self-serve these changes and submit requests.
The bi-directional integration capability of the VerseOne portal also means that Estuary avoided any “rip-and-replace” scenarios. They were able to put advanced capabilities in the hands of their customers whilst maximising their investment in their back-office systems. This also gives them the comfort of knowing that if they upgraded any back-office systems in the future, then the comprehensive portal we delivered would integrate to any new applications without needing to re-engineer the customer experience at the portal front-end.
Not only has the customer and employee experience both improved off the back of this project, but Estuary’s Communications Team went on to win the Digital Impact Award 2023 at the Essex Housing Awards. A testament to the changes they have made and the positive digital transformation they’ve undergone which has enhanced their customer support and services.
The new customer portal has been a great addition to our digital offering. We’re so proud to have won the Digital Impact Award based on the success we’ve seen from both this project and our wider strategy.
Gemma Tidd, Senior Communications Designer, Estuary Housing Association
To understand how your organisation could benefit from a self-service tenant portal that delivers an elevated customer experience, get in touch today.