Ringing the changes

Victor da Cunha, managing director of East Thames Housing Group subsidiary East Thames Housing Association, is looking back on the first two years of its call centre's life and pondering a paradox. Over those two years, the group has transformed the way in which it deals with customers, queries and problems thanks to a rapid and efficient telephone team that operates between the hours of 8.30am and 8.30pm on weekdays.

Customers recognise that service has improved but they don't express their satisfaction in silence. Like other housing providers that have gone down the call-centre route, East Thames is finding that the result of service improvement is simply a lot more phone calls.

Before the group opened the call centre, it received 5000 telephone calls a month to report repairs on the 10,000 properties it manages. Call numbers rose to 8000 in the centre's first month of operation and within six months more than doubled to 12,000 a month. And that is roughly where they have stayed ever since.

"Before, we weren't answering calls as effectively as we should have done," says da Cunha. "People might have called, but got the engaged signal and been lost. Now, we have accurate records."

Anne Thomas, service manager at the customer service centre, adds: "We knew calls would increase because people had been frustrated at not getting through."

Different tone
There's a key difference between housing sector call centres and the bigger, brasher ones operated by financial services and computer companies. Both sectors adopt telephone-based services to improve customer satisfaction, but whereas more calls to a bank translate to business growth, there is no such direct benefit for a housing association.

That difference was immediately apparent to Thomas when she moved from the private sector to open the call centre just over two years ago. "The client base is different," she says. "No matter what service we provide, I am never going to attract customers, as is the case in insurance or banking, although I think it does help us in enhancing our reputation with local authorities."

The prospect of improving customer service was impetus enough for East Thames to set up its call centre. Four years ago the group piloted the government's best value principles, reviewing its service delivery methods as part of that process. At the time, housing management was carried out by a team of housing officers based at five offices around East Thames' east London operating area and repairs were reported to an 0800 freephone number.

The review found that a call centre would improve tenants' accessibility to services. It would be welcomed by tenants and free up housing officers to allow them to take on a less office-based and more proactive role.

The centralisation of services through the call centre meant area offices could be closed down. This saved £100,000 a year, more than offsetting the £40,000 initial outlay on an automatic call distribution system.

  Branded Connect Direct, the call centre was launched in a blaze of publicity with an 0845 low-rate telephone number. Initially it was designed to deal with four areas of operation: repairs reporting, office reception and switchboard, allocations and lettings, and housing management and rent enquiries.

The strategy was ambitious, especially given the size of the team – 15 full-time staff manning telephone lines and a management team of three.

Indeed, making the system work has not been without teething problems. The association had expected that setting up a call centre would allow it to reduce overall staff levels, but it has had to supplement the 15 full-timers with 11 part-time staff to provide cover during busy periods such as Monday mornings and evenings.

"We're employing people in different ways to get more flexibility," says da Cunha. This year, the centre is increasing staffing further with another 70 hours of employment – not in terms of two full-time staff but in terms of part-time support. Recruiting part-time staff has not been a problem, says Thomas. "I'm surprised we have attracted so many people. We get a lot of mothers and students."

Holding on to staff
But two years on, staff retention is starting to become an issue, with staff commonly moving to jobs elsewhere within the association. Da Cunha sees this as positive. "The centre acts like an incubator. We are attracting completely different people," he says.

Thomas, however, has to deal with the consequences. "The call centre provides a good grounding, but the movement has proved difficult for me," she says.

"Customer service advisers are the lowest paid, so when an opportunity comes up within another team in the office, they apply. Working in the customer service centre needs to be sold a bit better."

Thomas is improving working conditions, and has upgraded the training regime. "We are learning all the time," she says. "We used to bring people in on a Saturday and give them a day's training and expect them to perform. Now we have put together a three-week training programme, which includes induction and buddying."

The association has also recognised the need for call centre staff to be motivated through performance incentives. The first time the call response target was achieved, the team received chocolates or wine, and the association lays on the occasional meal out at Pizza Express.

While Thomas admits the rewards are much more modest than in financial services call centres, the housing sector's workload is more varied than that of the average financial sector call centre. In addition to handling call centre queries, staff take up to 8000 switchboard calls a month and work on the office's reception desk, giving them face-to-face contact with customers.

At least two of the centre's staff specialise in allocating void properties. Nahid Mirza, team manager in the customer service centre, explains: "The initial thought behind putting allocations within the team was that a lot of the work was administrative and could be done here. We tried to multi-skill initially, but it didn't work and we found the best way was to release people to it totally. There has been a lot of trial and error in this."

The function is likely to be removed from the call centre altogether later this year.

Faults on the line
Even standard queries are not always straightforward for the call centre staff to handle. "Repairs-reporting is easy from a systems point of view but there are so many things for staff to take into account – for example, if a property is new, the contractor is responsible for the repair," says Thomas.

Some housing management queries occur so infrequently that staff forget how to respond to them, a problem the centre is hoping to resolve by setting up a staff information helpline on the intranet.

The centre's target is to answer 80% of calls in 20 seconds and to lose fewer than 7% of calls. "We started off with a slightly higher target, which I was used to from working in the private sector, but that wasn't achievable here," says Thomas.

The current target is in line with other housing associations. As Thomas points out: "There is not so much pressure on us to answer fast. Some calls can take time – someone may call with three different repairs – and we have fewer resources than the private sector."

Although the response target is regularly being met, the high number of calls is still cause for concern. The association is looking at ways of reducing repeat calls made, for example, by tenants complaining that repairs have not been dealt with. It has just spent £12,000 on a contact-logging system, which compiles calls into information reports.

"I suspect we're our own worst enemy: if contractors don't deliver, people call us," says da Cunha. "The system will let us see if someone is calling for the first or second time. We'll be able to identify whether calls relate to an individual repair contractor."

In terms of service accessibility and customer satisfaction, the call centre is meeting its objectives, but the allied aim of releasing housing officers to take up a more proactive role has not been realised.

"I would've hoped to have gone further with it," admits da Cunha. "We were looking to create a neighbourhood management role and that will require training. We would be breaking new ground there."