Flagship Group has transformed its repairs operations using software created by its in-house development team. Since the introduction of the ‘Orbis’ software in 2015, calls to Flagship’s contact centre have fallen by 70,000.
Flagship’s Orbis, which is the only system of its kind, enables staff to work more efficiently and effectively because it provides a single online location to carry out daily tasks such as organising operatives’ workloads and ordering materials.
Orbis enables Flagship’s operatives to find details of their daily repairs and maintenance jobs without having to call into the housing provider’s call centre. As a result, the average number of calls per day has fallen from more than 750 (April 2015/March 2016) to around 500 (April 2016/March 2017).
Matt Brazier, director of IT, Flagship Group, said, “Everything we do supports doing what’s right for our tenants, and this includes our technology and internal systems. Orbis is a system that gives the customer the best value and service because it’s been specifically designed around them. We are unique in that we have the in-house technological expertise to be able to create a system like this.
“Orbis has changed the way the business operates enormously, leading to an increase in productivity and a reduction in costs. And because it’s our own design, we can continue to adapt it to meet our future needs.”
Flagship has halved the amount of time operatives spend on hold when calling the call centre due to the integrated mapping function within the system. This allows users to geographically see where repair works need to be carried out and allocate the nearest operative. It also means an operative can complete multiple repairs, rather than individual ones, when in a particular area.
Since the launch of Orbis, the average number of jobs completed by Flagship’s carpenters, plumbers and electricians has risen from eight per day (April 2015) to 15 per day (March 2017).
Brazier said, “Orbis has changed the way we work because we now have the flexibility to deal with repairs faster and more easily, leading to an increase in the number of jobs we can complete each day.”
