Many social landlords are underutilising the full potential of their automation platforms, often using them to support just a single workflow despite having the capability to deliver value across multiple operational areas.
For most organisations, automation begins with one clear and practical use case, often Universal Credit Verification (UCV), which provides a straightforward entry point for adoption. However, organisations do not always realise how readily automation can be extended into other operational processes.
This was a key theme explored in our recent webinar, where 67% of attendees responded to our poll stated they currently use their automation platform for only one application. This is rarely due to limitations in the technology itself. More often, it reflects limited visibility into what else can be automated and uncertainty around where to apply automation next. Once the platform and infrastructure are in place, there is often significant untapped potential to expand automation into other operational areas without major additional investment.
Enterprise RPA, now part of Voicescape, has worked with organisations including Onward Homes and Southern Housing for several years, supporting them as they expanded their automation capabilities beyond UCV. During the session, guest speakers from both organisations shared how they identified new use cases and scaled automation across their operations, demonstrating how social landlords can maximise existing infrastructure to reduce operational pressure, improve efficiency and increase return on investment.
Onward Homes: Direct Debit Uplift Automation (Case study)For Onward Homes, annual rent reviews created significant operational pressure, with Direct Debit updates requiring large volumes of complex manual adjustments. This time-intensive process increased administrative burden and introduced greater risk of errors and delays. Automation was introduced to streamline this process through a data-led workflow that consolidates information across multiple systems, calculates adjustments and prepares updated Direct Debit records for timely processing. This reduced manual effort while creating a more reliable approach to managing annual rent charges. Key results:
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Southern Housing: Housing Benefit Overpayment HandlingManaging Housing Benefit overpayment requests is resource-intensive, requiring officers to review information across multiple systems and make timely decisions within strict deadlines. For social landlords, this creates both operational pressure and financial risk, where delays or missed challenges can results in avoidable costs. To address this, Southern Housing introduced automation to process Housing Benefit overpayment invoices. The solution extracts invoice data, validates it against internal systems and provides recommendations for staff review, enabling cases to be processed more quickly and consistently within requiring timeframes. Key results:
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One of the biggest messages from the webinar was the importance of taking a broader, strategic view of automation. Many organisations start with a single process, but once the foundations are in place, there are often many more opportunities to expand automation into other operational areas.
The session also highlighted how automation is not only about efficiency savings. By reducing repetitive manual work, organisations can free up teams to focus on more complex tasks, customer support, and higher-value activities.
Some of the common themes discussed included:
Making better use of existing automation license and infrastructure
Identifying repetitive and time-consuming processes that create operational pressure
Viewing automation as a long-term capability rather than a one-off project
Implementation timelines will vary depending on the complexity of the process, but many projects can be delivered within a matter of weeks. With the right approach, automation can continue evolving alongside organisational needs and unlock value across multiple business areas.
The opportunity for many social landlords lies in identifying overlooked processes where manual effort and operational bottlenecks still create unnecessary pressure. Exploring these areas can often reveal practical opportunities to extend automation and unlock further value from existing investment.
If you would like to explore how this could support your team, we would be pleased to continue the conversation. Get in touch with Paul Agnew, RPA Integration Lead at Voicescape.