Orbit Housing

Improving arrears management and customer satisfaction

I can’t get no…

The operational teams within Orbit knew that the way they were managing arrears needed improvement. The level of arrears was increasing, as was the cost of managing it, and more importantly, it was increasing the stress levels of their customers at the same time as Universal Credit was beginning to take effect. Something needed to change.

Orbit asked 4OC to have an initial conversation about how arrears was being managed, and we quickly developed an outcome-focused solution that would have an impact of the level of arrears, the cost of managing them, and customer experience.

...Satisfaction

work with Orbit’s arrears team and the wider organisation to co-design a new operating model. This process challenged preconceived assumptions and ways of working, pinned down the impacts of any proposed changes, and identified how any risks created could be mitigated and managed. This process ensured the solution designed was workable and that the teams felt ownership of the solution and new ways of working. It also ensures that any changes stuck.

Three years later, the model is still in place. Arrears have been reduced by 13% since 2019 and greater insight now enables action to be taken on arrears prevention. Customer satisfaction has consistently increased year-on-year.

Thoughts from Orbit

“The best thing about working with 4OC is that they are very operationally focused. They don’t bring off-the-shelf models—they designed ways of working tailored to our business that delivered the results we needed and have continued to improve our performance. They created great working relationships with the operational teams and helped them visualise how the changes would make a difference to their day job and help our customers, which it has.”

Louise Palese, Customer Operations Director

"[4OC] designed ways of working tailored to our business that delivered the results we needed"

For more...

If you’d like to find out more about how we delivered this work, or our approach supporting the sector, please check out our work in Housing or contact us at support@the4OC.com