Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council has appointed Voicescape to help boost its rent collections amongst current and former housing tenants.
The software business, which provides customer engagement and tenant sustainability solutions for UK social landlords, will enable the Council’s housing team to maximise operational efficiencies in the management of former tenant arrears (FTA) and current tenant
arrears (CTA).
Currently, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council manages more than 20,000 homes across the South Yorkshire town, with annual rental income totalling £83 million for 2020-21.
Focusing initially on FTA collections, with CTA collections being rolled out later this summer, the Council intends to provide tenants with further access to its housing service, as a result of working with Voicescape.
Paul Elliott, Business and Commercial Programme Manager, Adult Care, Housing and Public Health at Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, said: “Since rolling out Voicescape’s solution to our FTA team we have seen an increase in collection rates and reduced the down time of staff chasing former tenant’s arrears. Not only does Voicescape reduce the time officers spend on less productive tasks, it helps us update our systems by telling us which telephone numbers are no longer in use. We are so pleased with the results we will be rolling out the system to the wider income collection team later this summer.”
Through the partnership, the Council will be able to analyse and measure customer data, profile the financial risk that Universal Credit poses to the organisation, as well as use Voicescape’s cutting-edge technology to understand tenant behaviours and make evidence-based recommendations on how to build and maintain engagement.
Peter Hudson, Sales Director at Voicescape, commented: “Communicating and staying connected with tenants has never been more important or challenging as it is at the present time. It’s essential for social housing providers to find innovative ways of reaching as many people as possible, in order to maintain high levels of rental collections.
“Even within the first few weeks, we are already seeing impressive results from our work with Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council and we’re confident, as the service continues to roll out amongst all areas of rental collection, that the housing team and tenants
alike will benefit from the operational efficiencies that our technology and software provides them.”
