North Lincolnshire Homes, part of ongo, has chosen 1st Touch mobile workforce technology (www.1sttouch.com), for use on Apple iPads, to support its maintenance and responsive repairs operations.

With a partnership objective that everything they do is put back into the local communities, running an efficient maintenance operation across more than 10, 000 homes, in and around Scunthorpe, is a key element of North Lincolnshire Home’s service delivery commitment.

1st Touch mobile workforce software brings significant efficiencies and productivity increases to any organisation where field based operatives, equipped with handheld devices such as the iPad, deliver services. The software manages supports and controls all aspects of mobile operatives’ activities, linking the data gathered seamlessly to back-office systems.
1st Touch was chosen by North Lincolnshire Homes as the software had an existing integration with their back-office Aareon QL Housing Management system. North Lincolnshire Homes was also aware that 1st Touch leads the market in the supply of mobile technology to the social housing sector and had heard favourable reports about the software through networking with other social landlords.

In choosing 1st Touch mobile software for use on the maintenance operatives’ Apple iPads, North Lincolnshire Homes achieves significant time savings in which more jobs can be carried out with the same resources. As Steve Hepworth Director of Operations for North Lincolnshire Homes explains, “Ensuring that we have an effective and efficient maintenance service is an important element of our customer service strategy. With 1st Touch software on our iPads, we have increased the speed of our responses and our mobile operatives are out on the road more. This has helped us to achieve some fantastic customer service responses from our tenants. 1st Touch also allows us to look at how we can utilise a similar mobile system to the one we use in maintenance for the different services we offer across our range of companies. This includes our tenancy support teams who will be able to be out and about more with the right information with them when they are in tenants’ homes and will help us to deliver a high quality and flexible service. We can also design forms to use for home check visits for tenancy verification purposes. This allows us to gather lots of information that helps us to shape our services around the needs and aspirations of our customers.”

Neil Keay Head of Maintenance at North Lincolnshire Homes added “We have 41 people in our maintenance department using 1st Touch running on Apple iPads. The software has reduced the paperwork significantly. We no longer have form to fill in forms that are very difficult to administer. We believe the software will save us more than 80 hours a month which is a lot of extra jobs that we can fit in. Ultimately, this will benefit our tenants greatly.”

Commenting on the use of mobile technology at North Lincolnshire Homes, Robert Dent CEO of 1st Touch noted, “As part of the ongo partnership, North Lincolnshire homes has impressed me as they are completely focussed on putting everything they do back into local communities. An effective maintenance programme is an important element of this and we are delighted that they have chosen 1st Touch to manage their maintenance and responsive repairs operations. We look forward to working closely with them as they consider using similar mobile technology solutions across other parts of the enterprise.”

For a video on the use of 1st Touch mobile workforce technology at North Lincolnshire Homes please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVbWc8nLuqs&feature=youtu.be