How Sage Homes built a housing management function from scratch

Setting up a full-service housing and asset management team from scratch isn’t easy. It’s daunting and it’s hard, but it’s something few in our sector have the opportunity to do. It was really important for us to take this rare opportunity and use it to build something that puts customers first.

A massive advantage in starting with a blank sheet of paper is that there’s nothing to unpick. We got to take a step back and look afresh at how best to deliver services directly to our customers. We knew we wanted to be driven by three key factors:

Can-do attitude

First and foremost was a desire to recruit people who would never lose sight of, or stop advocating for, our customers. We looked for people with a can-do attitude, empathy for our customers and their circumstances, and who were driven to deliver the best possible service.

We have two simple mantras: put the customer first and constantly improve on the previous best. We only recruit people we know share this view.

The right infrastructure

A second priority was to build systems and services that help customers interact with us in ways that work best for them. We started by setting up a central hub – in the middle of the country and in the middle of our homes. We invested heavily in technology that enabled customers to self-serve online. 

We also built a contact centre with supporting infrastructure to manage calls, so that customers can always talk to a real person and, for more complex issues, a subject expert who can resolve it swiftly.

We created one single technology platform that works across every aspect of the business. This system supports every interaction with customers and their home, from customer relationship management, to telephony, asset management and our online customer portal.

Getting to know our customers

We knew we could not just rely on technology. It needed to be complemented by people, spearheaded by a specialised team of homes and communities officers who are now the face of Sage, wherever our homes are.

We wanted a combination of experienced housing professionals and those who could bring skills and experience from other sectors, especially those which depended on customer service for success.

Getting all those people together was invigorating and exhausting in equal measure, but it was never dull. Nothing matches the value of the knowledge this team gets by understanding and building relationships with our customers.  We’ve worked hard to build regional hubs in which our teams work flexibly and collaboratively to support our customers.

This mix of people, and the journey they’ve been on together, creates an agility and open mindset which means we embrace change. Starting from scratch, we worked with customers to co-create services for them. Our team continually checks in with our customers, and if they hear there is a way of delivering services that would work better for them, we are able to make changes quickly.

Learning along the way

Has it all been a breeze? Absolutely not. Have we made mistakes? We sure have.

However, we’ve tried to create a culture which enables us to spot and resolve issues quickly. A big advantage of being brand new is that we have very solid customer data in a single system, allowing us to understand where we’re underperforming and what we need to do to fix it.

It is early days, but the results are encouraging. In our first year of direct management, customers who have only experienced Sage service delivery reported a satisfaction rate of 86%. Our phone response times have also improved, with call-answering rates of more than 90% and our team regularly answering calls within 15 seconds.

There will always be areas where we can do better, but the speed of diagnosis and the willingness of teams to make changes mean we improve quickly. Eighteen months on from go-live, we are pleased with the progress we have made.

I could not be prouder of my dedicated and caring team. They have embraced this ambitious project and worked at pace to make it happen for our customers.

Roger Wilshaw, managing director of housing operations, Sage Homes