London & Quadrant is moving towards SMS-based tenant communications with the adoption of Deeplake’s CMGR software.
L&Q, which manages 53,000 properties, relies heavily on technology to deliver its business objectives and is already well-known for having developed its own in-house suite of housing applications, known as Arena, alongside a dedicated service centre which handles more than 60,000 incoming calls from tenants each month.
SMS/text messaging direct to tenant’s mobile phones was identified by L&Q’s IT team as a way of reducing the number of calls coming into the service centre, resulting in both reduced costs and a more responsive service for tenants. Deeplake’s CMGR two-way SMS communications software was tested during a recent L&Q staff conference and was voted a resounding success.
Peter Watson, director of information systems, London & Quadrant, said, “Deeplake is working with L&Q to incorporate its SMS system into Arena. This will enable Arena to automatically generate text messages to residents, staff and contractors about impending home visits and provide other information that would normally prompt a call to our service centre.”
CMGR will be integrated with Arena. Other information such as rent balances and waiting list placements will be available through a text-back service. The sales and marketing potential is also being assessed, as is the capability of providing real-time resident satisfaction surveys.
