PA Housing Case Study

Fri, 21 May 2021 13:28:20 +0000

Successfully Automating Arrears Letters

Overview

Our client, PA Housing, a registered provider of social housing with 23,000 properties across the Midlands and South East, have been investigating how they can deploy automation and digital transformation to their business process.

The Integrity Connect Solution

Integrity Connect were able to scope and develop an automated document workflow using our Quadient Automation software tools.

PA Housing were able to specify selective letter texts and graphics within the workflow so that it was now easy to brand letters by originating teams - improving tenant engagement.

With a clear brief from the Project Team at PA Housing, Integrity Connect were able to develop, test and deliver the new automated workflow for Arrears letters within a week of the initial project meeting.

Client Benefits

20+ hours saved every week

Improved tenant engagement

Solution integrates with home working

STAFF TIME Although the initial workflow solution only manages around 250 letters each week the project has delivered a measurable process improvement with an estimated saving of 20 hours every week.

“Working with Integrity has really opened our eyes to just how much opportunity there is to improve our document workflows and to improve the customer experience.

Katherine Hiscock, Income Services and Analytics Manager at PA Housing

The 5 No Cost Ways to Turn your Rent Statements into a powerful tool for tenant communication and make “On-Time Production” a breeze rather than a stressful chore

Fri, 29 Mar 2019 05:00:00 +0000

Your customers deserve more from their rent statements than simply a reminder of how much they owe!

There’s every chance that if you are like the majority of other Housing Associations within the UK, the printing and mailing of your rent statements is like trying to swim wearing a straight jacket.

There are so many restrictions to what you can do, that it’s hard to keep your head above water as you continue to struggle to meet
important deadlines.

In an ideal world there would be so much more you could do with your statements to make them a really useful piece of communication with tenants, and not just be about accurately communicating balances.

Whilst you are making the time, effort and trouble to communicate with your tenants there are many missed opportunities that could and should be available to you, without major cost implications.

Lets look at the 5 most important and valuable opportunities that already exist.

Imagine if you could consult with your residents so that they could choose a layout that they prefer. system imposes.

Opportunity No.
Your Statements can easily become clearer and easier to read, and quicker for your customers to understand…

Because of the highly restrictive nature of many housing management systems most Housing Associations do not have the flexibility to present their information in a manner that flows naturally and is clear and easy to understand. final statements.
With the right expertise and bespoke program scripts it is perfectly possible to create a statement of your choice from scratch, and one that follows exactly what you require rather than making you adapt to its restrictions.
The secret is being able to use the raw data that your housing management system already produces and reproducing that in a format that suits the tenant rather than the program.
Furthermore, it is possible to quickly and easily produce a range of sample statements that you can use to circulate to your tenants for detailed consultation.

Opportunity No.
Communicate much more effectively by personalising your Statements to each and every resident.
No doubt you would like statements to reflect the care and consideration that you offer to tenants elsewhere within your organisation.
Sophisticated software already exists which will allow you to do this, and you will be amazed at how many different aspects of each rent statement can be personalised.
You could very easily target highly personalised messages to individuals based on criteria from within your data or by data provided separately.

Put yourself back in control.
For example, there might be a need to communicate specific messages to residents at a post code level, on a particular estate, or perhaps those of a particular age, ethnicity or need (or any combination of these or other criteria).
Perhaps you would like to modify the exact wording of your arrears messaging to reflect the amount of arrears?
For example you may wish to notify residents who are in arrears over a certain amount and within certain post codes of upcoming financial advice services within their locality by using personalised messaging and also include an accompanying leaflet.

Opportunity No.
Improved Security

For the vast majority of UK Housing Associations, statements are printed in-house, often with access to all.
Because of the extremely sensitive and confidential nature of these documents (containing the most personalised details of all of your residents) it is imperative that the maximum security is involved.
You should also take advantage of the use of bar coding.
Intelligent mailing lines read the bar codes unique to each page of every statements and know which record is due next, how many pages it contains and therefore when to fold and enclose.

Opportunity No.
Cost Savings

There are many ways in which an outsource rent statement service can save you money, but perhaps the most obvious saving is through postage discounts. readily available.
Any letter sized mailing over 4,000 envelopes will automatically qualify for mail sort discounts.
Another opportunity for cost saving exists with selective messaging which utilises white space within the body of each statement to enable you to include messages for no extra cost.
Example saving –

A quarterly rent statement mailing to 5,000 customers which includes a graphical message in the body of the statement would cost absolutely no more to print.
With the use of the right expertise and resources, staff can be freed to concentrate on their core responsibilities and will not be tied up for several days every quarter printing, folding, enclosing and franking statements.
Which means more time can be spent on more pro-active tasks such as income collection.
Further savings can be made by freeing printers and servers otherwise busy producing documents, which could be more easily and more cost effectively outsourced.
Staff retention may be enhanced by outsourcing tedious tasks.
The cost of printing large print statements for visually impaired clients is often underestimated.

Opportunity No.
Improved Customer Service

Modern statement systems provide for a full colour pdf of every statement to be available shortly after you have approved your proofs, indexed by tenancy reference (or any other naming convention you may require) which we transfer to secure ftp so that your Call Centre staff can see each statement exactly as it was sent to your customers.
Queries can be dealt with more quickly and effectively. and queries.

What To Do Next?
If you can readily identify with even one of these 5 opportunities to improve the efficiency of your statements, then you can take advantage of our service without any net cost to you. Before long you could be enjoying the same results as some of our existing clients.
What our customers say…

Our statements were screen print-outs from rent accounts, so not tenant-friendly or available in large print.
The implementation went very smoothly, and now we can tailor the appropriate message for every single statement.
We’ve had great feedback from tenants, with more direct debit sign-ups, and a big reduction in queries which has saved us significant staff resources.
I was also highly impressed with the site visit to the mailing house which GPS organised which was very transparent and well organised.
If I had to sum up the benefits of the GPS statements services I’d say our statements are now far more professional, more tenant-friendly, easier to produce, and far more cost and time effective than before.
Income Manager, Hertfordshire Housing Association

We were spending so much time and resource on producing mediocre rentstatements.
Income Manager, North London Housing Association

Please call us on 01923 274670 for a no obligation discussion of how you can benefit from automated statement services.
If you take up my offer you’ll be in good company with 70+ other UK Housing Associations that have transformed the value of their statements and removed a major area of hassle from their organisation.
If it is more convenient, simply email your interest to:

GPSDM

PA Housing Case Study

The 5 No Cost Ways to Turn your Rent Statements into a powerful tool for tenant communication and make “On-Time Production” a breeze rather than a stressful chore