Affinity Sutton has laid the foundations for a group-wide contact centre to support tenants in its 49,000 properties nationwide.
Created through the merger of William Sutton Group and Affinity Homes Group, Affinity Sutton has eight operating companies including Broomleigh and Downland housing associations.
Mike Yarde, ITU director, Affinity Sutton, said, “Throughout the mergers and acquisitions, our aim has been to standardise IT systems. We wanted to enhance existing systems rather than make sweeping changes, so it made sense to work with Civica, Broomleigh’s existing partner.”
Civica advised on the launch of a joint Broomleigh and Downland contact centre, laying the foundations for a group-wide service. The approach was to deploy a contact centre solution, electronic document management, and workflow to ensure effective communication between departments.
The contact centre handles 23,000 calls per month. It aims to answer 85 per cent of calls within 15 seconds and resolve 75 per cent first time, contrasting with tenants’ typical experience of being passed from department to department, put on hold or waiting to be called back.
As William Sutton Homes becomes the third organisation in the group to make use of Affinity Sutton’s consolidated contact centre, there are plans to provide the service to all associations within the group, in conjunction with a move towards Civica’s PDA-based mobile service.
