Places for People is the UK’s leading Social Enterprise that owns and manages more than 230,000 homes, operates 100 leisure facilities, and supports over 500,000 customers across the UK. As a housing provider, they’re legally responsible for arranging annual gas safety checks with customers – And as they strive to make things easier for their customers, were looking for a more efficient process.
Read on to discover how Places for People are reducing no-access rates…
The challenge
Since 2020, Places for People has been using the Voicescape Compliance solution to book, confirm, and reschedule appointments for electrical safety checks. The solution enabled the housing provider to successfully reduce no-access rates by 14%. Impressed with the results, their team was eager to explore how the system could reduce no-access rates for gas safety checks on 52,000 properties.
In previous years, customers due a gas safety check would receive an appointment confirmation letter and a text message, but this process wasn’t effortless. If the customer wanted to confirm or reschedule their appointment, they had to contact the admin team directly, causing further inconvenience and reduced productivity.
How it works
Voicescape Compliance is our property compliance software that automates the process of booking, confirming, and rescheduling safety visits with customers. It ensures housing providers comply with legal property safety and maintenance requirements, whilst streamlining the scheduling process to maximise appointment opportunities. All while reducing no-access rates and allowing customers to ensure that they get these vitals checks completed on time.
Places for People utilises the solution to automate calls to customers due a gas safety check. If the customer is unavailable, a text message is sent, giving them the opportunity to confirm that someone will be at home for the appointment. If they don’t respond to the text, Places for People will send a reminder text after three and seven days with a link to speak to their team and reschedule the appointment.
“After finding out more about Voicescape Compliance’s offering, we were very pleased to use them as our preferred provider to remind customers about their appointments and increase access rates. We wanted to improve our customer experience and give customers a choice to reschedule their gas safety appointments. We also want to ensure that our gas engineers are able to complete as many jobs per day as possible. We don’t want them to turn up to a property and be turned away,”
- Lindsey Boal, National Scheduling Manager at Places for People
The results
Within three months of using Voicescape Compliance, Places for People saw a significant 32% decrease in no-access rate for gas safety checks, from an average of 25% to as low as 17% based on weekly data. In turn, their teams’ productivity levels have increased.
“This has significantly reduced wasted journeys and time for our team, meaning that we can visit and assist more of our customers. Voicescape Compliance also gives power to the customer. It gives them the opportunity to confirm or reschedule appointments at a time that suits them,”
- Lindsey Boal, National Scheduling Manager at Places for People
She also noted how seamless the implementation process was;
“Once we had chosen Voicescape Compliance we were looking forward to getting the system implemented as soon as possible. The implementation process was very smooth. We worked closely with Lewis (Senior Account Manager) and Vicky (Customer Success Manager) to implement the solution, and I can only sing their praises. Their communication was amazing, and the team at Voicescape are so helpful and patient.”
- Lindsey Boal, National Scheduling Manager at Places for People
Ready to reduce no-access rates and remain compliant?
To learn more about how Voicescape Compliance could work for your housing provider, book a demo with our sales team today.
Get in touch?
Want to see how Voicescape technology could help your housing association? Get in touch