What makes Housing Associations good at IT Service Management?

Housing Associations exist in one of those hybrid worlds, working within the challenging budgets of the not-for-profit organisation but faced with the demands of technology-dependent colleagues and often the organisation’s customers, partners and tenants. I’ve been working with the IT departments of Housing Associations for over 15 years now, and their commitment to the cause of delivering good service to all, combined with the resourcefulness of striving to stretch their technology platforms – like the Service Desk – to the limit, never ceases to impress.

‘Doing more with less’

…has become a mantra across all types of business and I’ve seen some great examples come from Housing.

WM Housing, a customer of over 5 years gave some insight at a recent Sunrise User Group:

• The budget saved by moving from outsourcing to in-house with Sunrise ITSM allowed funding for 5 extra headcount in IT as well as the software costs
• Easy configuration of the software has evident benefits to the in-house team
• Automation has led to fair allocation of new calls and task assignment across the service desk team
• New employee or replacement equipment forms provide consistency of required information and enable tasks to be routed across departments
• Service desk team accessible Knowledge and self-service enhance efficiency.

Of course, they aren’t alone either in going way beyond the standard ‘service desk’ set-up.

Self-Service is a huge driver to efficiency across the board. Another large Housing Group has experienced around 80% of calls diverted to self-service of 13,000 calls logged in the first 3 months live; a great achievement when so many organisations struggle with self-service adoption rates. This customer took the copy-book approach of unashamedly launching the new self-service facility with full marketing power, promoting the new portal across the company to ensure that co-workers understood its availability and how to use it.

Other customers like Curo have benefitted from the flexibility of customising their ITSM solution to their own needs too over the years – proof if needed that the benefits of a comprehensive service desk solution go way beyond just answering IT calls.

The list goes on – mobile and homeworkers have shaped the pace of change at not-for-profit organisations too, and they’re just as likely now as any other sector to adopt the flexibilities of SaaS delivery over on-premise installation. We’ve recently had more Housing Associations join the ranks of Sunrise ITSM customers, so we’re looking forward to helping them deliver outstanding service and support whatever challenges might lie ahead!