Transforming customer service through a stronger contact centre and customer hub

We’ve been listening closely to what our tenants, customers and communities need from us — faster responses, clearer processes, and support that feels genuinely helpful. Over the past few months, we’ve made some big changes across our Contact Centre and Customer Hub, and we’re already noticing improvements and seeing the difference.

The Contact Centre has been reshaped to make it easier for tenants to get the help they need first time, no matter how they choose to get in touch. The team has focused on three key improvements:

• Resolving more enquiries at the first point of contact
• Removing the triage centre and bringing those functions into the Customer Hub
• Improving training and simplifying how complex queries are escalated

These changes are paying off. Since 1 October, average call wait times have dropped from 12 minutes 53 seconds (July–September) to four minutes 55 seconds (October–December) and then reduced even further to three minutes 22 seconds (January – March). This puts us comfortably within the Customer Focus Committee (CFC) target of 4 minutes 40 seconds – a huge achievement in such a short space of time.

The dedicated timeslot of 9 – 10am to report any emergency repairs has been replaced with a dedicated emergency repairs phone line, which is available throughout the working day, making it easier for residents and customers to get urgent help when they need it. Out‑of‑hours emergencies continue to be handled by Orca.

To keep the Contact Centre focused on tenants, we’re also reducing internal requests.

Advisors currently receive around 1,000 internal emails each month, many for tasks that can be completed within departments. Reducing these requests means more time can be spent on supporting residents and customers.

A stronger Customer Hub supporting neighbourhoods

The Customer Hub is now the central support engine for our neighbourhood model. By bringing together assistants from Lettings and Tenancy deparements and integrating Triage Officers, we’re creating a more joined‑up, efficient service behind the scenes.

The Hub now:

• Takes on transactional administration so Neighbourhood Officers can spend more time in their communities
• Manages property advertising, shortlisting, and checks before cases are passed on
• Strengthens the antisocial behaviour triage for better case management
• Introduces a new Support Officer role to reduce admin for field teams

The Hub will also take responsibility for managing urgent repair ‘no access’ cases, working closely with Neighbourhood Officers to ensure issues are resolved quickly and effectively.

Delivering a service that works for our communities

These improvements are already making an effective and positive difference – quicker responses, clearer processes, and better support for both tenants and frontline teams. And while we’re proud of the progress so far, we know there’s more to do.

We’ll keep refining, strengthening, and listening, because our goal remains the same: a service that’s responsive, reliable, and built around the needs of our tenants, customers and communities.