Castlehill Housing Association has signed an enterprise agreement for mobile workforce management software from 1st Touch. The software will be used by housing officers and maintenance workers to access and update back-office information on tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices.
1st Touch mobile was chosen because it had an existing integration with the Aareon housing management system used by Castlehill. Another key factor in Castlehill’s decision was 1st Touch’s Smart Airtime feature which allows data to be sent to and from the mobile devices in short compressed bursts when a signal is available.
Geoff Helme, financial director, Castlehill Housing Association, said, “We are always focused on finding new ways in which we can improve our customer interface. Investing in 1st Touch mobile workforce software enables us to automate our customer-facing processes for mobile workers and to reduce response times in areas such as maintenance. It is quite a shift away from how we worked previously and will undoubtedly improve our productivity and deliver efficiencies.
“This is no small task, however, as the geography in this part of the country poses a potentially huge challenge for any mobile application. People tend to forget how big an area we cover and how sparsely populated some regions are. It is often not an easy environment and the reception is frequently extremely patchy. With its Smart Airtime feature, 1st Touch copes well with the challenge as it can send data back to base in short encrypted bursts when a signal is available. Naturally, this was very important to us and was a major consideration in our choice.”
