Unified Communications Services

Description

Wheatley Housing Group requires a new unified communications system for its Customer First Centre to replace the current system which is reaching end of life. Wheatley Group requires a new telephony system for its Customer First Centre (CFC), as the current system is aged and will no longer be supported within the 12 months. Group’s current telephony system has been in place for over a decade now providing both call centre and switchboard functionality from an on-premises solution. CFC was established in 2021 and followed a restructure of our existing contact centre to introduce housing, repairs and commercial teams who provide specialist support to customer contact. Groups blended operating model is enabled by the CFC which serves as a cornerstone, freeing up patch housing officers from transactional customer inquiries so they can spend more time in neighbourhoods. During the first year the CFC received close to 1m in-bound calls, received over 100,000 emails and offered webchat. Voice will continue to be the primary channel for future years. However, we have set out a road map and vision for what the CFC can achieve for our customers in future months and years. Out with the CFC the telephony platform and switch board services are also utilised by other non-CFC staff. There are over 600 staff using the platform in 120 locations: -Group Debt Recovery Team – utilising outbound dialler technology to enable debt recovery; -Care staff offices - giving care customers and agencies direct access to local care staff; -Concierge stations – providing customers access to concierge staff who drawdown services on their behalf; and -Digital Technology Solutions Service Desk, providing technology support across all Group staff.