With tenant satisfaction at the centre of the government’s plans for consumer regulation, contact centres have a crucial role to play in how housing providers are regarded by residents.

Contact centre staff are often the first point of contact between tenant and landlord and, as part of the new consumer standards, it is vital that colleagues understand the importance of treating residents with fairness and respect while helping them to access a service or make a complaint.

But the new era of regulation comes at a time when customer-facing teams continue to face significant operational challenges, particularly around repairs and damp and mould issues, as well as the upcoming 7.7% rent increase.

Heightened customer expectations, longer and more complex conversations and high staff turnover are still having an impact on morale. ‘Compassion fatigue’ and ‘quietly quitting’ are just two of the phrases commonly being used to describe how those working in contact centres are currently feeling.

Our 2024 contact centres conference will aim to tackle some of the big issues currently facing frontline teams working in the sector, identify wider trends in the contact centre industry and seek an answer to the question: how do we look after and get the best out of our customer-facing staff during a period of unprecedented regulatory change for the sector and significant challenges for both residents and businesses?

We will be bringing together some top speakers from inside and outside the housing sector to explore how the contact centre world is changing, what needs to be done and the solutions available to support residents and deliver first-class customer service.

We will also hear how housing providers are responding to the contact centre challenges they face.

Key themes:

• Understanding the role of the contact centre in meeting new regulatory requirements
• Managing heightened customer expectations and understanding the contact centre’s role in delivering customer satisfaction
• Current contact centre trends – what you need to know
• Building resilience in contact centres – addressing low morale, high staff turnover and recruiting the right people
• Getting your contact centre culture and technology right – tips from the experts
• Delivering a seamless omnichannel customer experience with a human touch
• Putting data at the heart of the contact centre.

This event is essential for:

• Chief executives
• Directors of operations/customer service/housing services
• Customer service and contact centre teams – managers and operational staff
• HR and organisational development managers
• Business transformation teams
• Digital teams
• Resident engagement teams
• Strategy teams.

10.30 Welcome and introductions

• • Eamon McGoldrick, Managing Director, National Federation of ALMOs

10.40 Embracing change – understanding and addressing the challenges facing housing contact centres

• • Jo Causon, Chief Executive, The Institute of Customer Service

11.30 What the new consumer standards mean for contact centres and customer-facing teams

• • Jonathan Driscoll, Assistant Director – Regulatory Engagement, Regulator of Social Housing

12.00 Regulator Q&A

12.15 Break

12.45 Voice of the Contact Centre Consumer

• • Stephen Yap, Research Director, Call Centre Management Association

13.20 Final discussion and closing remarks

• • Eamon McGoldrick, Managing Director, National Federation of ALMOs

13.30 Close

Jo Causon, Chief Executive, The Institute of Customer Service

Jo became the Institute’s CEO back in 2009. She has driven membership growth by 150 percent and established the UK Customer Satisfaction Index as the national barometer of customer satisfaction and a key indicator of the return on service strategy investment.

Jo brings a wealth of experience from the commercial sector, enabling her to put customer service at the heart of the Boardroom agenda. She has extensive experience in the financial services sector, having previously held positions at Aviva plc for over 11 years and acted as non-executive director at Aegon UK’s independent governance committee. She also held director roles in brand and business consulting, policy development and research for City and Guilds and the Chartered Management Institute.

Jo focuses on demonstrating a clear link between employee engagement, customer service strategies and organisational performance. Working across the public, private and voluntary sectors she provides strategic advice to Boardrooms to raise the standards of service provided by UK organisations and provide evidence of the connection between customer satisfaction and operational efficiency and profitability.

She has worked with politicians across all sides of the House, focusing on the impact that service has on the UK economy and productivity. As a result she is a regular commentator on national media and has been called to give evidence at the Public Administration Select Committee inquiry into complaints handling.

Away from work, Jo is a keen walker and traveller. She has travelled extensively around Europe and wider continents, using her experiences to draw parallels on service strategy which she believes UK organisations should adopt and adapt to enhance customer satisfaction in an increasingly global marketplace.

Stephen Yap, Research Director, Call Centre Management Association

Stephen Yap is the Research Director for the Call Centre Management Association (CCMA), where he designs and delivers bespoke research on topics of interest to the contact-centre sector, encompassing themes such as customer and colleague experience, operations management and technology transformation.

Stephen and CCMA have published almost 30 papers on these topics. As a speaker, Stephen appears regularly at CCMA and external events.

Eamon McGoldrick, Managing Director, National Federation of ALMOs

Eamon has over 46 years’ experience in housing, having started at the Greater London Council in 1977. He then worked for the London Boroughs of Brent, Hillingdon, Barnet and Islington. Eamon was appointed Chief Executive of Homes for Islington in 2004 and retained that position until March 2012. During that period, he was responsible for the management of 35,000 homes.

Eamon is now an independent consultant and is currently Managing Director of the National Federation of ALMOs which is the trade body for all ALMO’s. He is also Chair of the Barnet Group, Chair of a Homeless Charity and a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Housing and the Chartered Management Institute.

Jonathan Driscoll, Assistant Director – Regulatory Engagement, Regulator of Social Housing

Jonathan Driscoll is the Assistant Director of Regulatory Engagement at the Regulator of Social Housing. He leads a team responsible for the regulation, engagement and inspections of local authority landlords. Jonathan has been involved in the design and delivery of the changes to consumer regulation, including the new inspection methodology and consumer standards. Before working at the Regulator of Social Housing, Jonathan worked in roles in healthcare regulation, complaint handling and investigation, most recently leading a hospital inspection team at the Care Quality Commission. Jonathan is also a board member and trustee of a hospice and governor of a primary school.

If you are unable to attend an event or public training course, please let us know in writing (email is fine) at least 48 hours before. Please email [email protected]

Otherwise, a cancellation fee of £60 plus VAT will be chargeable.

If you are using a package place to attend and do not inform us within the agreed time frame, then a place will be taken to cover your non-attendance.

Cancellations must be made in writing, and will be acknowledged by HQN Limited