{"id":9455,"date":"2023-12-07T13:25:12","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T13:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=9455"},"modified":"2023-12-07T13:25:13","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T13:25:13","slug":"phone-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/eu\/blog\/phone-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Phone and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bridging the Gap Between Voice, Salesforce and Your Interactions with Residents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Housing associations are confronting a multitude of challenges that have reshaped their operating environment. The UK\u2019s recovery from the pandemic has compounded long-standing challenges such as political shifts, economic fluctuations, and evolving social needs. Navigating this complex landscape requires innovative solutions and forward-thinking strategies. The bedrock of this is simple: technology. The role of the contact centre is crucial to improve experience delivery and modernising this function of the organisation can pave potential pathways for progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPathway\u201d is such an important term here, and getting the fundamentals right is something that is critical but often overlooked when starting a transformation journey. Too much too fast can set you up to fail. Therefore, a logical place to start is the customer service team, which is the foundation for customer experience transformation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customer service functions in housing associations are unique when compared to the private sector for a number of reasons. Foremost is the importance of users outside of the customer service functions and their role in ensuring a seamless resident experience. A common problem is a disconnect between users in the field such as housing and repairs officers and contact centre agents, with agents often having no visibility on whether the field user they want to transfer to is available. This is combined with having to work in siloed systems and lacking reporting capability across the full caller journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support is a must in your transformation journey<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We believe that consolidating telephony across the organisation and unifying the voice and digital channels with CRM data is the best way to address these issues and future-proof your organisation. Of course, this is easier said than done and requires careful consideration. The first step is selecting a supplier who can support you on your transformation journey, no matter how ambitious your plans are. Vonage<\/a> is a key partner of Salesforce<\/a> for telephony and contact centre, and have been working together for over 15 years, with over 800 joint customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online collaboration & communication tools are crucial for housing associations, particularly in this post-pandemic world and whether it\u2019s Slack<\/a> or MS Teams, Vonage can provide a native integration to both, offering bi-directional presence sync and single sign-on. Their suite of communications APIs (voice, SMS, messaging) can be used to proactively reach out to residents about a repair, gas safety checks, or rent balance, or you could start a video call to diagnose a problem with the property. For outbound use cases, the Salesforce dialler can be used to chase outstanding rent arrears. If the goal is improving inbound or outbound communication, the possibilities are practically endless with Vonage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said, the contact centre is the beating heart of housing associations and it is critical that the technology and strategy implemented here is right before moving on to the \u201cbells and whistles\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how do you do this?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We believe it boils down to four key areas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n