Earlier this week, we went live with a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which has been many months in the making, and arguably the biggest project we have undertaken as a business in the last 10 years.  

The solution, supplied by Esuasive and built on a Microsoft Dynamics platform aims to transform our customers’ journey and experience with us.  In addition to bringing organisational efficiencies, it will allow us to really understand our customers’ needs, manage all interactions in one place, and enhance our ability to target communication and services effectively. The MS Dynamics system also provides an improved Live Chat and telephony service, and a new and improved customer portal for customers to manage their tenancy at the front end.

A fundamental driver of the new CRM is us putting our customers at the centre of everything, whether that’s in their day-to-day interactions with our services, providing more self-service options or using customer data and insight to deliver services that are more tailored to their needs.  

Teams from across the organisation have worked tirelessly on the project, and to see the project cross the line and go live this week is a huge milestone that we are all, rightly celebrating!  With many months of refining the specification, to the build, testing, data migration and communication, it’s been a monumental effort from everyone involved. 

Supporting colleagues in how to use the CRM has been a significant undertaking. As part of the launch, the project team have set up a Command Centre in our head office, and have been floor walking, and guiding colleagues through using the new system in the live environment, with a dedicated internal ‘Knowledge Hub’ site with user guides, how to’s, FAQs and more.

Paul Croston, Director of IT, Technology and Data said: “Implementing a system of this size and scale is no easy task, it takes a lot of planning, preparation and engagement with various stakeholders to make sure that the system delivers what we need it to now and more importantly what it will deliver for our future roadmap. I’m really proud of the project team and what they have achieved. Transitioning a new system to live is always a big moment but the amount of meticulous planning and testing that has gone into the project is the reason why it has gone so well”.

Lisa Olsen, Director of Customer Experience added: “It’s been fantastic to be in and around the team this week, to witness this significant milestone.  So much hard work has gone into to getting us to this point.  The system ‘go live’ is not the end of our CRM project but the start. It is the springboard to new and better ways of working that will transform the way that we communicate with our customers and deliver our services”

Throughout the project, the passion and commitment from colleagues has been really incredible, and we’re now looking forward with great anticipation to the benefits that we will reap from this investment.

Most importantly, we look forward to seeing the improvement in our customers’ experience, and the way it improves their lives.