Bridging the Gap

Bridging the housing association service gap

Managing onsite and remote teams is no easy task. Answering tenant requests and tasking maintenance workers across multiple sites is a costly and laborious conundrum — and it never ends.

If you’re using fragmented software, like email and spreadsheets, keeping track of everything, and everyone, can make service desk staff and field service teams feel like they’re in a void — and tenants can feel like they’re left hanging.

Here’s how to bridge the gap between the service desk and field services.

Reaching across the void

People feel more valued when they’re listened to. Connecting up teams and including customers in the conversation not only makes them feel special, but it means everyone can add more value to the business.

ServiceNow’s Cloud-based system consolidates your field services and facilities management into one simple, easy-to-use platform, helping you build solid, three-way bridges between your office-based staff, remote service teams and customers.

Real-time collaboration

With the end-user portals, your tenants can log incidents and office staff can allocate jobs and resources to the mobile workers  — all in real time, and all inside the same app. Your customers can also ask questions and register complaints inside the same platform — and know that they’re being heard.

A friendlier way to communicate

IT can put a lot of people off, especially the vulnerable and elderly. With friendly, easy-to-use interfaces which everyone can understand, tenants are more likely to get in touch. The messages will get to the right people at the right time, so the task can be logged instantly. No more missed emails or calls, no more delays and no more customers left hanging.

Joining up the dots

Mobile staff update their progress as they go. With the Field Services Management and Facilities Management modules, service desk employees can check resources, schedules, known issues and maintenance records from the same platform, and track maintenance teams’ workload.

No need to access competing, overlapping software systems or contact scattered workers individually. Everyone can collaborate within the same platform, and on the fly, saving time and IT costs, while keeping customers satisfied.

Up-to-date and informed

And, because office-based teams can see all staff movements in one space, they can keep the tenant up-to-date every step of the way — or put the remote worker directly in touch with the resident.

Automatic updates and end-to-end visibility

By automating repeatable tasks, workers are freed up to deal with emergency incidents, which makes the day-to-day organisation of staff much easier.

Service-desk employees can see a snapshot of available resources and allocated tasks. Along with invoicing and all communications, audits become a routine task, not a drawn-out, time-consuming burden.

Everything — and everyone — together

Everything is together in one place in a fluid, continuous system. Staff can be reactive and customers can interact in a collaborative way, filling in the gaps and rebuilding bridges. Manpower and IT costs are reduced, people feel more valued; customer satisfaction and employee retention soars.

Empowering tenants through ITSM

ServiceNow is an ITSM (IT Service Management) tool delivered by Technosys. The Field Services Management and Facilities Management modules are used by housing associations across the globe. Read more about how ServiceNow can support and empower tenants or how Technosys is taking the IT out of ITSM.