• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Housing Technology logo

Housing Technology

Housing | IT | Telecoms | Business | Ecology

  • Free Subscription
  • Search Archive
  • Home
  • Research
  • Magazine
  • Events
  • Recruitment
  • Blog
  • On Demand
  • Contact
Home / Free Subscriber Access / North Wales Housing first in Wales to launch Futr’s AI chatbot

North Wales Housing first in Wales to launch Futr’s AI chatbot

North Wales Housing has become the first housing provider in Wales to launch a conversational AI chatbot from Futr. The chatbot, named Huw, sits on the website and is designed to answer a range of tenant queries at any time in just a few clicks.

Since its adoption, Huw has improved tenant engagement and access to services in both English and Welsh, with the latter being spoken by around 900,000 people across the country.

Within the first five months of launching Huw without any promotion, the bot has automated 1,200 questions with an average response time of 1.8 seconds, equating to an average saving of £7,000.

Brett Sadler, operations director, North Wales Housing, said, “Huw’s built-in auto-translation between English and Welsh makes the service as inclusive as possible for Welsh speakers. We already offer telephone services in both English and Welsh, but the addition of the Futr chatbot offers an additional digital touchpoint for tenants.”

In addition to the AI-powered chatbot, North Wales Housing is also using Futr’s live-chat system which triages and, where applicable, escalates urgent queries to a human agent.

Andy Wilkins, co-founder and CEO, Futr, said “North Wales Housing is setting a new standard for tenant engagement and experience especially for native Welsh speakers. Being able to provide services in Welsh is particularly important for the North Wales region of Gwynedd where 75 per cent of people identify as Welsh speakers. With the implementation of Huw, the housing provider is democratising its services and freeing up its employees to focus on more complex challenges.”

The chatbot was tested, trained and reviewed for a month, including testing with both staff and tenants, to ensure that the auto-generated Welsh dialogue flows were accurate.

Sadler said, “We spent a lot of time during the testing phase making sure that the Welsh translation option would be accurate enough for our customers. This included extensive testing from fluent Welsh language staff within the organisation. We were always clear that we would not sign-off on the new chatbot solution without assurance that the Welsh language option would be accurate.”

See More On:

  • Vendor: Futr
  • Housing Association: North Wales Housing
  • Topic: Customer Management
  • Publication Date: 086 – March 2022
  • Type: News

Primary Sidebar

Most Recent Articles

  • Free cyber-defence tools from NCSC
  • Learning from history
  • Grand Union Housing gets connected with Aico HomeLink
  • The silences in the system: Predicting and preventing damp and mould
  • Looking back and to the future: Cyberthreats in social housing
  • Hyde signs repairs contract with Totalmobile
  • Fuelling high performance automation
  • Morgan Sindall’s Carbon Zero decarbonisation tool
  • An ethical approach to arrears
  • Housing and the ever-evolving workplace
  • Supporting residents with home safety risks
  • Less innovation & more service design at RHP
  • Ateb Group outsources IT help desks to Central Networks
  • Capital Letters partners with Evo Digital to tackle homelessness
  • Calico appoints M247 for digital transformation
  • 24/7 care requires 24/7 technology
  • Govtech trends for 2023
  • Are you ready for business process automation?
  • Lincoln council moves to the cloud with Civica
  • Why do IT business improvement projects fail?
  • Flagship and Ebrik launch augmented reality app
  • Following the golden thread
  • Setting the standard for carbon-monoxide protection
  • The business case for data
  • Digital twins – When, not if…
  • Using data to build communities
  • The cyber-security jigsaw’s missing piece – Managed detection & response
  • Cyber-security challenges in housing
  • Digitalising retrofits with SHDF & HomeLink
  • Tips for improving care and support

Footer

Housing Technology
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Contact
  • Free Subscription
  • Book an event
  • Blog
  • Search All Articles
  • Research
  • Update Your Subscription
  • Privacy Policy

Welcome to the housing Technology – Trusted Information For Business Professionals in HOusing

Housing Technology is the leading technology information service for the UK housing sector and local governments. We have always believed in the fundamental importance of how the UK’s social housing providers use technology to improve their tenants’ lives.

Subscribe to Housing Technology to gain market-leading research, unsurpassed peer networking opportunities and a greater understanding of your role to transform your business.

Copyright © The Intelligent Business Company 2022 | Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy
Housing Technology is published by the The Intelligent Business Company. A company with limited liability. Registered in England No. 4958057 | Vat Registion No. 833 0069 55.

Registered Business Address: Hoppingwood Farm, Robin Hood Way, London, SW20 0AB | Telephone: +44 (0) 20 8336 2293

htc23 pop banner