Published July 2011

Social housing contact centres are in danger of becoming a victim of their own success. In just a few years, they have evolved from an innovative extra to an integral part of the housing provider's operations, offering a respected and responsive service to residents through a single point of contact. Resident expectations have risen accordingly and the contact centre is their first port of call for all kinds of enquiries.

Residents now expect contact centres to own and resolve their issues. Advisers, therefore, find themselves facing ever more complex enquiries - that require a level of knowledge that is normally found in the specialist departments. Dealing with these complex enquiries typically involves the adviser either referring the resident on, or having to make several calls to get further information.

What starts as a fine example of advisers and the contact centre going the extra mile, ends up as an expensive, slow and involved process that ultimately swamps the contact centre and reduces its effectiveness.

Superficially, the answer might seem to be to increase the number of advisers or invest in training. In reality, contact centres simply don't have the budget for that. Those in the public sector are facing well-publicised cuts. Social housing organisations are under pressure and they are equally keen to use the contact centre to become more cost-effective and efficient in the use of expensive staff resources. For the contact centre manager and their team, it is no longer enough to work harder. Instead, it's time to work smarter.

Social housing contact centres need to apply their considerable customer service skills to a wider range of calls - without needing to refer to other departments/agencies for information. Their operatives need more information on more subjects literally at their fingertips. Intelligent scripting provides the answer.

Intelligent scripting is already used in a number of contact centres, helping to guide advisers through key processes and standard forms. They are provided with a series of on-screen prompts that guide them through the enquiry process. This provides expert guidance and automated access to relevant context-dependent information - e.g. customer profiles, asset data, history, service information.

Advisers are thus equipped with the specialist guidance to deal with issues about which they may have only general knowledge. The 'intelligence' is in the system and for advisers working on the front line in social housing, the potential is enormous.

So, as well as advisers having access to intelligent scripting, the quality of the information they contain needs to be first class. That's why intelligent scripting for social housing contact centres needs to be based on both the expert input of housing professionals, qualified trades-people and of business analysts. It also needs to take account of the practical experience of those working in customer-facing roles within the sector.

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