Stockport Homes are an arms-length management organisation (ALMO) managing a mixed stock of 12,000 council-owned and self-owned properties - together they are “one team transforming lives”. Despite being one of the highest-performing housing providers in the country, Stockport Homes are on a continuous journey of improvement, continually seeking new efficiencies in the ways they work and innovative ways to support and engage with their tenants. This is where Voicescape’s award-winning Caseload Manager solution came in.
The Challenge
Christian and the team are driven by a focus on having quality conversations with customers. To achieve this, they sought to find a solution to automate outbound contact to those who required less support, giving their team more time to offer it to those who need it most. They weren’t confident that their legacy income analytics product could provide enough accuracy with the cases it recommended and on that basis did not feel able to automate contact, which caused officer time to be wasted on manual outreach.
Stockport Homes were initially attracted to Voicescape Collections due to their automation goals. It was only after a subsequent conversation that they were introduced to the AI and machine learning capabilities of Caseload Manager, and were: “...blown away; the solution had everything we were looking for.” The team was impressed by its ability to take them from a rule to a risk-based approach when managing cases – as well as how highly configurable the solution is and would meet their needs.
“We collect a lot of income that isn’t necessarily current tenant arrears, so this product meant that we could put more account types through it. That was a big selling point.”
Christian Hartley, Head of Customer Finance at Stockport Homes
The Solution & Implementation
Prior to go-live, Stockport Homes liaised closely with social landlord, Thirteen Group – the solution’s development partner – as well as the Voicescape team with product demos, to keep abreast of how the solution was developing and how it could be harnessed for maximum efficiency.
During this time, Stockport Homes created an internal business case for their Data and Digital Board, a process they follow for all new software applications. Here, it was determined that Caseload Manager was the right fit, and work began to gather all the necessary resources in place for a successful implementation. Christian Hartley, Head of Customer Finance, collaborated with Stockport Homes’ Business Change team to ensure the right people were assigned to the project and joined forces with Carly Harling and Vicky Clayton, our dedicated implementation and customer success specialists.
Voicescape’s implementation team provided an initial project plan, which was refined during a kick-off meeting with the Stockport Homes’ team. While Voicescape works with trusted solutions providers to help its customers prepare their data for integration, Stockport Homes already had in place a well-structured and optimised data strategy with the in-house skills to extract data from their housing management system.
Following successful testing with income officers, Stockport Homes went live with Caseload Manager just two months after the initial kick-off meeting. Christian believed the process could have been even quicker if not for the summer holidays and other training commitments. Having accurate and comprehensive data certainly helped, but Christian partly put the smooth and speedy implementation down to getting their team on board from the very beginning. Voicescape Sales Director, Peter Hudson and Ste Lawrence, and Technical Director, Steven Skarratt, also supported the team carrying out demos, which built buy-in and excitement from the team about the solution from the beginning of implementation.
“Since I’ve worked in social housing, I’ve never known an IT project that has gone live on time with no significant issues. I’ve had direct discussions with Voicescape’s Technical Director which is not the norm compared to other suppliers. When other social landlords have asked us how we feel about Caseload Manager, we’ve told them to go for it. We have no regrets.”
Christian Hartley, Head of Customer Finance at Stockport Homes
The Results
Following go-live, Voicescape’s Customer Success Team team have worked closely with Stockport Homes and remained responsive to queries and suggestions for further customisation. Weekly meetings ensure dialogue and collaboration is consistent. Stockport Homes’ income officers feel encouraged to trust the product, particularly moving from a rules-based to a risk-based solution that removes and presents new cases on a daily basis. Ultimately, this has eradicated outdated data from the system, meaning that they are acting on the latest information, saving time and boosting morale within the team.
As a result, Stockport Homes’ case volumes have decreased by 40% per officer! This has led to more capacity for longer, more in-depth conversations with tenants requiring more complex support – a key indicator that Caseload Manager is driving more quality conversations with communities. Stockport also reported their year-end arrears rate target for 2024/2025 was 1.6 - 1.7% and they’re now tracking ahead of their previous financial year target of 1.86% - a great success!
“We’ve now been live with Caseload Manager for a couple of months, and it’s already a proven product in my eyes.”
Christian Hartley, Head of Customer Finance at Stockport Homes
The Future
Voicescape prides itself on listening to customers and being open and flexible to tailor our solutions to what our customers need. This enables us to drive new enhancements that benefit our entire customer base. Our partnership with Stockport Homes epitomises this, with their experiences and recommendations already driving exciting new capabilities within the Caseload Manager interface.
“I’m really impressed about where the product is going. Compared with what we’re seeing now, it’s clear from the roadmap that it’s going to get even better over the coming months, which is down to Voicescape listening to customers and giving them what they want.”
Christian Hartley, Head of Customer Finance at Stockport Homes
We look forward to checking back in on the continued performance of Caseload Manager at Stockport Homes as we develop our solution further in line with the real-time experiences of our customers. Discover how Voicescape can help you achieve a step change in caseload management by getting in touch today.
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