L&Q replaced an ageing on-premise system with the Puzzel cloud contact centre. Its teams now control call flows live, support more home working and have a clearer picture of what tenants are saying.
Regulated, accountable and always in contact with tenants
Housing providers work in a closely overseen environment. L&Q is regulated by the housing regulator and follows the Housing Ombudsman's rules and guidance on complaints.
For Kim Baker, Head of Customer Services and Operations, that makes the contact centre central to how L&Q serves its tenants. Teams need to respond quickly when contact patterns change, and they need to understand why tenants are getting in touch.
An on-premise system at the end of its life
Before Puzzel, L&Q ran an on-premise contact centre solution. It was reaching the end of its life, and Kim's team could see it no longer fitted how the business wanted to work.
“We knew as a business we had a need to move to something a bit more dynamic for us,” Kim explains. L&Q wanted a system on the cloud that gave the team access to make changes live, in real time. That would let them update and manage call flows throughout the day rather than waiting for changes to be made for them.
There was a second priority. L&Q wanted to expand home working, so advisors could connect to the telephony system remotely without needing to be in the office. “We had a requirement to change the system into something that was more fitting for us and just a bit more modern,” Kim says.
A cloud contact centre the whole team can use
L&Q moved to the Puzzel cloud contact centre and added Conversational Intelligence to understand tenant contact in more depth.
Kim says one thing has stood out from the start. “I’ve really liked about Puzzel from the off is how easy it’s been to use for everyone, how everyone’s been able to use the system.”
Her team now monitors incoming customer contacts every day. They can adjust call flows, skilling and the wider arrangements in the contact centre as needs change. Changes that once depended on the limits of an on-premise system can now be made by the team themselves, at the pace the day requires.
Finding the causes of repeat contact
Conversational Intelligence has changed how L&Q’s Intelligence & Speech Analysts work. Tom Chiverton says the biggest wins come from being able to spot things that help the team direct its focus.
One example is repeat contact. L&Q uses Conversational Intelligence to identify why tenants have to get in touch more than once. That insight points to training needs for staff, so the team can put effort where it will make the most difference.
The team also uses trackers within Conversational Intelligence, alongside sentiment analysis. Together they give an in-depth picture of how tenants feel about any particular topic, not just how many of them are calling.
Less building, more learning
Carrina Erdos, Customer Experience Manager, has seen the difference first-hand. With the previous system, her team had to do much of the groundwork themselves.
“The last system we had wasn’t as user-friendly, and we had to build all the categories and the communications, and we had to tell the system what we thought the issues were and what we thought the calls were about, and build on that,” she says.
Conversational Intelligence works the other way round. “It tells us what the problems are, and we can build on that and expand on that,” Carrina says. “For my team, it’s been so user-friendly.”
Reporting at the click of a button
Reporting has become faster and less manual. Tom values how easily the team can see the information that matters. “At the click of a button, we can instantly see what are the top call drivers, what are people complaining about, what are people praising, what are they enjoying about our services,” he says.
Kelly Dyson, Intelligence & Speech Analyst, has taken it a step further by setting up report subscriptions. They go out automatically, so nobody has to go back in every week and download the report.
Positive surprises
Kelly says every surprise since go-live has been a good one. Some features made more sense in use than they had in a demo.
“There were features of the system that, although we’d kind of seen in demos, we didn’t really understand how they could work for us,” she explains. Ask AI is one example. “When we actually got that and were able to use it, we could really understand the benefits of it.”
What’s next for L&Q
L&Q has moved from a system at the end of its life to one the team can shape themselves. It has live control of call flows, support for more home working, and insight into tenant contact that helps it decide where to focus.
“It’s been a really big change for us,” Kim says. “We’ve got some important plans in the pipeline that we’re really excited to deliver on. I think the future looks very bright with Puzzel.”
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