Raven Housing Trust has chosen an online customer portal from Aareon. The Portal, which will offer a wide range of online services to over 6.5k residents across Surrey and Sussex, will free-up existing call-centre staff to spend more time with those in greater need.
The new system allows all customers to access key services 24/7, using their own devices from the comfort of their homes. Once fully operational, the services that will be available through the MyRaven customer portal will include:
- Updating contact details of occupants
- Viewing rent statements, balances and arrears
- Making payments
- Raising queries such as estate issues
- Requesting and scheduling repairs / viewing repairs history
- Generating electrical and gas certificates following inspections
- The ability to log anti-social behaviour (ASB) issues
- Garage rental
Initial sign-up has been encouraging with over 1500 customers already registered. This is a strong start, and Raven has already met its initial short-term goal – to have 20% of rent payments (excluding direct debits) made through the portal. Ultimately, Raven Housing Trust envisages that the Portal could become the primary interface for customers, with over 50% of rent payments made online. In the future, the MyRaven portal may also be used to promote a number of ‘home programmes’ such as new kitchen or bathroom campaigns.
Raven Housing Trust chose the Aareon Portal as it could easily update its existing Aareon QL housing management system with all the customer information generated. In addition, the portal’s dashboard-style layout was easy to use and tailor and there was excellent integration with other systems such as payment and appointment scheduling.
Commenting on the new Portal Joanne Silner, Customer Services Manager of Raven Housing, said: “The MyRaven customer portal has already proved extremely popular with residents. They have found that it is easy to use and navigate around. Largely, this is in part a tribute to Aareon’s technology behind the portal. We are confident that as the range of services offered expands; MyRaven will become the main interface of choice for many of our residents – who quite simply appreciate its convenience. Indeed, we are already seeing success stories where some customers are more comfortable to pay online when it suits them, rather than make a number of phone calls during working hours. Beyond this, the Portal frees up a great deal of time for our Customer Services Advisors who are now able to provide an improved level of service for those customers who need it most.
“Further to this, our advisors are now able to talk residents through the registration process with a joined up, professional approach that they greatly appreciate.”
For his part Aareon UK’s MD Nigel Rees, welcomed these comments adding, “The MyRaven customer portal is a shining example of good practice and we are delighted that initially there has been such a strong and positive response with registrations. The customer benefits for Raven Housing Trust’s Customer Service Advisors are clear and from a data point of view, Raven will derive a number of significant management benefits from the integration between the MyRaven Portal and the Aareon QL housing Management System. We look forward to working closely with them and exploring other areas where the Portal and other systems can support the excellent work they do.”