Sheffield Homes delivers radical improvements to customer service
17 October 2005
In a drive to enhance the quality of service provided to its housing tenants, Sheffield Homes has successfully completed a £1million overhaul of the IT Infrastructure supporting its core housing system.
The improved IT infrastructure, provided by Northgate Information Solutions, has enabled staff to be more responsive to tenant needs through increasing capacity and responsiveness for its 1,000 IT users.
Prior to the project, capacity restrictions and poor response times had constrained Sheffield Homes' ability to deal effectively with enquiries. There is now capacity for a greater number of users to access the system simultaneously without any reductions in performance. The core technology also provides a firm foundation on which to manage future developments, such as flexible working for staff and increased self-service for tenants.
Northgate won the project following a competitive procurement run by Liberata, Sheffield Homes' Strategic Partner. Northgate's innovative approach and willingness to work with other partners (Liberata and Anite) was deemed to provide best value for money.
Janet Parry, Director responsible for ICT at Sheffield Homes, said today:
"Dealing quickly and efficiently with customer queries is central to our service ethos. The infrastructure refresh was imperative for us to be able to respond to customer queries quickly and provide the best level of service possible.
"The previous capacity restrictions and response times meant inefficient back-office processing, as staff had to wait their turn to log on to the system. We are now much better placed to move towards more flexible working practices and services for our tenants."
Andy Ross, Managing Director, Northgate Managed Services, added:
"The Sheffield Homes project reflects our commitment to providing customer value in local government, helping authorities to improve the quality and efficiency of services they provide to citizens. Large scale IT upgrades can often be a long-winded and complicated process. Our innovative solution and approach means that users are seeing the maximum benefit in the shortest space of time."
