From: David Todd, Partnerships director, Xmbrace
Sir – From speaking with housing organisations their fundamental objective remains the same – to achieve more with less. While budgets continue to be tight, never before have I seen so much pressure on every aspect of social housing to deliver improved services to their residents.
We are seeing a growing trend for appointment booking and dynamic scheduling to be used by the full range of housing services in an attempt to drive productivity at the same time as delivering improved levels of service. This is not new to housing organisations, as it has played a major role in responsive repairs by increasing the number of appointments made and kept and the number of jobs completed per day.
We are now seeing a growing demand to implement corporate resource booking solutions across a wide range of housing services including allocations, estate management, homelessness and all types of property inspection. The drive for this is simple; to make the best use of people through the smart use of available time, and updating the schedule in real time with mobile technology. Not only is productivity increased but more time is spent with residents; enabling more to be delivered with less.
