A lack of staff skills and quality data is holding back housing providers’ digital transformation programmes, according to a survey from Futr.
More than half (54 per cent) of Futr’s respondents said that a lack of digital skills and resources was their main barrier to digital transformation, followed by not enough good data and a lack of investment (32 per cent).
Kitty Hadaway, head of sales for housing, Futr, said, “90 per cent of the housing providers we spoke to said that it was very important for tenants to have choices in how they could contact their landlord, and that means complementing telephones with web, social media, chatbots and messaging channels. But to deliver that in a coherent, integrated and consistent manner requires many housing providers to digitally transform themselves.”
It wasn’t only tenants demanding digital means of communication; 90 per cent of housing providers said that their staff were also pushing for more omni-channel services.
Hadaway said, “Some people will say that new technologies mean cutting jobs, but forward-thinking organisations will always see it as a way to augment their teams, not scale them back.
“When a lack of skills is a major concern, being able to introduce new services that help staff do their jobs or focus on more complex problems can help accelerate digital transformation while improving employee engagement.”
