Case Study: Homes for Students Scores 4.5/5 CSAT Score With Netcall

The Challenge

Homes for Students has grown rapidly since it began offering accommodation at five properties a decade ago. Today, it provides housing for over 55,000 UK and international students at 200-plus properties across 55 UK cities.

The leadership team wanted to deepen their understanding of customer engagement patterns. Their existing contact centre solution didn’t offer enough analytics to fuel continued growth and its rigid activity code structure prevented them from getting clear, actionable management insights.

Although the system managed the increasing call volumes accompanying their rapid expansion, Homes for Students wanted to elevate customer experience while continuing to address increasingly complex student needs.

During university clearing it was all hands on deck. Staff from across the business moved from their core roles to support the contact centre.

To ensure comprehensive customer support, Homes for Students strategically supplemented its in-house team with a trusted third-party contact centre provider, to maintain service continuity, but they wanted to be able to manage this without those additional costs.

Homes for Students chose Liberty Converse as its contact centre solution for delivering satisfying omnichannel experiences. Now calls, emails and webchat are brought together – making life simpler for students and advisors.

Netcall’s chatbot and the ability to generate a wealth of analytics on demand for the first time are also proving to be a game changer.

The Solution

Liberty Converse uses automation to lift a huge weight off the contact centre team, while improving quality and scalability across contact channels.

Converse’s chatbot offers far more than a standard chatbot – it can be used to automate tasks, answer questions and provide customer service 24/7. The voice of the customer speaks volumes – survey feedback has provided comments including:

“It was amazing from start to finish – you provided literally everything I asked for and your team were very patient and respectful.

I love your service – you guys are lovely! Quick connections with staff and any issues were sorted very quickly.”

Every enquiry is tracked. Students calling up at ultra-busy periods or out of hours are automatically offered a callback at a convenient time. This is a big win for international students especially.

Meanwhile, there’s no need for teams to spend hours sifting and sorting emails. Converse has it covered – assessing the content of each message and sending it to the right team member or department automatically.

Liberty Converse makes it easy for advisors to navigate calls, emails and webchats – keeping track of everything in one place. Now there’s just one source of the truth.

Advisors no longer need to keep switching between separate systems and can spend more time with students.

Liberty Converse also provides managers with insights into staff performance – showing the areas where team members excel.

This has boosted advisors’ confidence and gives them credit for doing a great job with specific kinds of interactions. In turn, the system can then be configured, so enquiries are directed to subject-area experts.

Homes for Students is passionate about giving students a great customer experience – and empathetic to their anxieties and aspirations as they make their first steps towards leaving home.

Liberty Converse simplifies the journey for students. They can get in touch using whichever contact channel they prefer – and always get a response. This builds confidence in Homes for Students.

With all helpful information at their fingertips, advisors can answer questions fully and easily, right away, in a single session. It’s simple and fast to send important information to a student via instant message.

Liberty Converse delivers a wealth of actionable insights to drive revenue and quality, so Homes for Students can better manage its resources.

Enquiry levels for specific cities and housing locations can be matched to advertising campaigns, giving insights into enquiry-to-sale conversion ratios. The Homes for Students marketing team can then tweak campaigns to boost numbers accordingly.

Contact centre managers can also see enquiry levels ramping up – and adjust contact centre staffing to meet trends, optimizing efficiency.

The Result

• Omnichannel engagement – Seamless integration between calls, emails and webchat on the same platform and connected directly to the company’s own systems
• Handling the peaks – During peaks like university clearing, all enquiries can be dealt with, even when this exceeds 2,000 calls in a day, with no need for costly out-of-hours third-party contact centre providers
• Accurate, real-time analytics – For the first time, Homes for Students can see how its contact centre is performing, providing a single source of truth and enabling key adjustments to optimize quality and efficiency
• Support for its mission – Homes for Students can now deliver consistently high levels of interaction and service to students based anywhere at any time
• Better experiences for everyone – Liberty Converse is intuitive and nimble, the easy and clear user interface helps advisors and students get all the answers they need quickly – Homes for Students has achieved a 4.5 out of 5 score in their customer satisfaction reviews
• Savings achieved – Homes for Students no longer needs out-of-hours cover from a third-party contact centre
• Power to innovate – The platform’s feature set, scalability and low-code options provide scope for Homes For Students to evolve services easily and stay ahead in the student accommodation marketplace.

“You only get one chance to make a good first impression via your contact centre. It must be meaningful and positive. And that’s why we value Liberty Converse. It enables our contact centre teams to deliver their best, every day,” said Abbey Siner, Internal Sales Manager at Homes for Students.

Reviewed by: Megan Jones