Customer Story - Paradigm Housing Group Enhances Customer Experience

The customer communication challenge

Paradigm was looking for a way to provide a modern customer experience by improving communication around repair appointments.

Previously, customers received a reminder the day before the appointment, and engineers needed to telephone the customer before they set off. After the appointment, there was no way to find out if the customer was satisfied with the experience.

The new solution would need to automatically let customers know when an engineer was on their way. This would allow customers to plan their day, thereby reducing costly missed appointments.

In addition, the solution needed to provide granular, job-based feedback data. This would help Paradigm to fulfil its mission of continually enhancing customer service.

Automated communications and ETA tracking

The team at Paradigm had heard about Localz from peers within the housing industry, and knew that the solution would be a great match.

Localz was chosen to power Paradigm’s “Paradigm On Track” service. Customers receive an SMS with the engineer’s expected arrival time, and a link to track their arrival on a map. Once the appointment is finished, customers are invited to give feedback.

“The tracking stood out as a way to provide the modern customer service that we were looking for. In addition, the transactional feedback would be incredibly valuable,” explains James Emblow, Head of Property Analytics at Paradigm Housing Group.

ETA tracking and communications

Paradigm residents benefit from real-time reminders and tracking, resulting in fewer carded appointments.

The customer receives an SMS when the appointment is scheduled, along with an additional reminder the day before the visit.

When the operative is on their way, the customer receives a further message with an arrival window and a link to the web-based portal.

The portal includes an ETA countdown and a live map to track the engineer. This reduces stress for customers, and allows them to plan their day.

Customers can also use multiparty chat to give the engineer any specific entry instructions.

Since implementing Localz, Paradigm has achieved a 20-40% reduction in carded appointments for responsive repairs compared to the same months the previous year.

By increasing first-time access, the housing provider has reduced operative downtime and made significant operational savings.

Transactional feedback

Appointment-based feedback speeds up service recovery and complements existing business data.

Once the job is completed, the customer receives an SMS linking to the web portal, where they can provide feedback.

On the rare occasion that a customer submits negative feedback, the team at Paradigm can contact the customer straight away to work through any problems. This makes real-time feedback an essential part of Paradigm’s preventative complaints process.

James explains: “The transactional feedback data is worth its weight in gold. It solves the challenge of trying to be precise and recognise after each repair whether the customer is happy.”

To make the most of feedback data provided by Localz, the company feeds this information into its business intelligence platform. Customer reviews are used to create word clouds and scores for individual operatives.

“Feedback has shined a light on really good performance, so we can identify operatives who are doing well and learn from what they’re doing. The granularity of the data makes this possible,” says Emblow.

Since adopting the feedback solution, Paradigm has achieved an impressive average rating of 4.6 stars out of 5 from customers.