MyTVH is our online customer services platform at Thames Valley Housing. Here's an update as at December 2014 with our newly released payment gateway functionality.

1. DELIVERING ONLINE CUSTOMER
SERVICES
Jayne Hilditch
Updated December 2014
DECEMBER 15, 2014 1

2. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO ONLINE SERVICES:
The only way
A choice of ways
The preferred way

3. “make it so good, people who can,
choose to use it.

4. “make it so good, people who can,
choose to use it.

5. ONLINE SERVICES:
▸ Customers have asked for it.
▸ Offers a 24/7 channel to customers
▸Reduce the cost to serve
▸ 2009 Audit Commission/PWC report on 19 Local Authorities transaction costs
- Post £12.10
- Face to Face £10.53
- Phone £3.39
- Online £0.08
▸ A PhD thesis could be written (and probably has).
▸ Lots of exchanging ignorances : its not been done at scale in housing yet.
▸ We’re measuring as we roll-out, so we can start to answer those questions

6. WHAT HAVE WE DONE…

7. PICTURE OF BREAD AND BUTTER

8. BREAD & BUTTER… (FOR THE CUSTOMER)
▸Accounts:
 Rent & service charge statements
 Parking / garage and sundry charges
 HB statement
 Make a payment using our own payment gateway
▸Repairs:
 Request a repair – integrates with back-office workflow
 View repairs reported & completed
 Visibility over common parts
 Upload a photo of the problem
 Feedback on the contractors performance
 Book a repair appointment slot
▸Contact info specific to that customer

9.  OLD WORLD
… website was a PR/Marketing thing
… mobile not considered

10.  NEW WORLD
… digital services
… mobile is king

12. BREAD & BUTTER… (FOR THE ORGANISATION)
▸Scale-able web hosting
▸Real time data
▸Top notch security & identity verification
▸Analytics in real time
▸Admin suite
▸Test/Demo environments with fakify data

13. TRANSFORMING PAYMENTS WITH MY TVH
Old: using AllPay (the HA market leader) New: MyTVH Payments
£7.8M pa by debit card over the phone
3.5 minutes per phone call 3.5 minute call, AND they’re signed up to
MyTVH with details saved for online
payment next time.
25,000 phone payments per year
(that’s 1 FTE : 42 working weeks pa)
We’re measuring the phone payments &
online payment volumes in real time
49.5p per transaction 29.5p per transaction
14 days to get cleared funds 3 days to get cleared funds
Manual upload interface for the receipt Automatic interface for the receipt
Customer account : takes 3 days to show Customer account : shows immediately

14. TRANSFORMING PAYMENTS WITH MY TVH
And it’s a thing of beauty…

16. DATA ANALYTICS
People are using it:
▸75% are return visits. Compared to 7% in old system
Tech Stuff:
▸Mobile : 44% of visits
▸Apple devices outnumber Android devices. Amazingly.
▸IE6 is dead. And IE7 & IE8 not far behind. Important to know
this for browser testing.

17. WHAT WE’VE LEARNED: ABOUT THE PROCESS
▸Procurement headaches can be overcome: G-cloud.
▸Skill mix is vital: a multi-disciplinary team sees blind spots.
▸Beware the curse of knowledge: the customer has no idea
about your internal departments.
▸Beware of in-expert enthusiasts with strong feelings about
screen layouts. User-experience design is a skill informed by
data over opinion.
▸A good development partner will challenge you: that feels
weird, but results in a better product.

18. ROAD MAP…
▸Repairs:
▸ Upload a photo
▸ Book an appointment online
▸ Give feedback on a repair
▸ Alerts & status updates
▸A communications dashboard
▸Service charge statements
▸Searchable knowledge base: can I?