Improve the customer experience and extend the features of raising a repair to a Hackney property

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done Hackney is undertaking a programme of work to develop the digital services necessary to ensure that tools for tenants, leaseholders and staff are so good, people prefer to use them. Hackney has approximately 32,000 tenants and leaseholders. Its repairs contact centre receives 171,000 calls per year, which are roughly split between new requests and calls following-up existing requests. This is one of three projects to improve repairs. The others will tackle the process of sending an operative to a job, and managing the finances around a repair. Problem to Be Solved The previous online repairs solution had low uptake whilst a number of frictions in the technology experience of handling calls frustrated residents and staff. The technology integrations between part of the repairs service are complex and cannot be monitored in realtime. This project is designed to improve the current solution, ensure that the software in the repairs contact centre supports a high quality experience, and support the raising of communal repairs. Who Are the Users As a resident, I need to easily request a repair online so that I can do it at my convenience. As a resident, I need to be able to raise a repair easily on the phone so that emergency requests are handled quickly. As a resident, I need to request repairs to communal areas so that my block or estate are safe and well maintained. As a customer service agent I need to handle calls quickly and easily so that I can give callers the information they need. Early Market Engagement FutureGov led a discovery phase to establish the strategy for improving our housing technology services. DXW has developed the online repairs service improvement. We have developed some of the other digital services to support housing in-house, using Outsystems and Dynamics 365. Work Already Done Hackney has been working to improve the experience of raising a repair. A new online service is in beta for repairs to a property. Last year, the council launched a mobile solution for its direct labour organisation. This is one of three projects to improve repairs. The others will tackle the process of sending an operative to a job (which is expected to start at a similar time), and managing the finances around a repair (which may be commissioned once these phases have been completed). Existing Team Repairs service manager, responsible for overall development of the service. 1 Product Owner within the Housing Service, responsible for delivering improvements to working practices within the Repairs Service. 2x in-house .NET developers who have built the REST API to support repairs 1x Delivery Manager Current Phase Not started Work Location Hackney Service Centre, 1 Hillman Street, E8 Working Arrangments We would prefer a team onsite for 3 days a week, most weeks in order to engage with ICT and Repairs Service colleagues and build broader engagement with the style of working (eg through show and tells). Security Clearance Additional T&Cs Skills & Experience Provide a multi-disciplinary team, including user research, service design, front-end and back-end developers Demonstrate a track-record of user-centred design and Agile approaches Have delivered a service that’s been assessed against a government service standard Demonstrate experience designing services for a wide range of digital skills and confidence Share their work freely and openly with the Council and the wider community Be able to build or design a tool that’s so good, people prefer to use it Show how it can support development of REST APIs to Hackney’s standards Experience of developing design patterns that can be re-used for other services Have experience working with social housing providers or repairs providers Experience of using analytics and user research to prioritise a backlog of improvements Ruby on Rails expertise Nice to Haves Show how it has supported development of an in-house team No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria Understanding of user needs from the service Clarity of the approach Experience from a similar project Team structure, including skills, experiences and relevance of individuals Identification of risks and plan to mitigate them Price per sprint Cultural Fit Criteria Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions Share knowledge and experience with team members and the wider service Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 5% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers Budget range up to £150,000 exc vat for the whole project - but we’d expect the investment in improvements to be linked to benefits.