Havebury Housing has equipped 50 members of its maintenance and repairs team with T-Mobile’s MDA Vario devices to improve customer service to tenants in its 5700 properties in West Suffolk. The PDAs allow them to receive job schedules, send and receive emails, use the internet and work on documents and applications while away from the office.
Paul Rowley, IT manager, Havebury Housing, said, “When our technicians are on the road, they can now access, via a specially-tailored application, the latest information on any job or customer that they are visiting. As soon as we receive a call from one of our tenants requesting a visit, we can email this information immediately to the most relevant technician.”
Thanks to GPS navigation, staff in the office can match every job according to the location of each technician at that time, resulting in technicians spending less time travelling between jobs.
In addition to the usual benefits of mobile working, Havebury has also enjoyed more intangible benefits. Paul Rowley said, “Prior to using the T-Mobile service, it was difficult to make our mobile workers feel part of the company. Having these devices has been fantastic in making these staff feel included in the life of the company. Many of our technicians are much happier in their jobs now and more satisfied with the company.”
