Communicating with Tenants: Simple or Chaotic?
Housing association employees face a significant challenge every day: how do you communicate effectively with (tens of) thousands of tenants, each with their own preferences? One tenant wants a paper letter, another an email, and some expect a message via WhatsApp or a customer portal. Especially for housing associations that have grown significantly through mergers, it often feels like a puzzle that never quite fits together.
Tenant Communication
The tenant relations department receives dozens of questions and requests every day. Some tenants are waiting for a letter, while others are impatiently refreshing their email. Meanwhile, everything you send must not only be factually correct but also adhere to the correct corporate style and tone of voice. With so many different ways to communicate, it’s a challenge to maintain an overview while working efficiently. This is especially true when many overlapping systems are in use. By leveraging existing data in ERP/CRM systems and making the right selections in a straightforward manner, departments can easily draft emails and share them with tenants via their preferred channel. And then there’s the security factor. With the rise of digital communication, it’s becoming increasingly important to ensure that personal data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, the personal data of thousands of tenants is often a prime target for cybercriminals. So how do you ensure secure, efficient, and consistent communication without getting overwhelmed by it all? Another thing you want to avoid is facing a fine from the Dutch Data Protection Authority due to a data breach or cyberattack.
Output Management as a Solution
Professional output management is therefore crucial. Essentially, it’s about intelligently organizing and automating all communication flows. Whether it’s letters, emails, or digital messages, everything is managed in one central location. No more scattered (digital or paper) documents sent by different employees in their own way—instead, a streamlined process that ensures the right message reaches the right tenant at the right time.
“Investing in output management means a higher level of secure tenant communication, for example, due to encrypted document processing and automated distribution, which significantly reduces the risk of data breaches and human error. In addition, access controls and auditing ensure that only authorized individuals have access to sensitive information, which lowers the risk of cybercrime.”
Business Consultant for Housing Associations at OneXillium
OneXillium securely and efficiently connects all digital information within your organization for everything related to input and output.
With Enterprise Information Management, we help housing authorities securely and efficiently connect all digital information—from tenants, suppliers, and internal departments. Today, up to 80% of the available information goes unused, even though you have to make crucial decisions every day about rent, renovations, quality of life, and sustainability.
We intelligently capture all incoming information at the source (input). This includes reports submitted through the customer portal, invoices from contractors, and incoming correspondence. We then manage that information centrally and securely (management), ensuring that you always comply with the latest laws and regulations and that everyone works with the same, reliable data. Finally, we automate the output—from resident letters to annual financial reports—and ensure seamless communication across every channel.
This way, you can help your colleagues by reducing manual work and minimizing errors, while also providing tenants with faster, better service.
As a housing authority, you want to offer tenants the best possible service without making it feel like an impossible task for your employees. Curious to find out how you, too, can make your communication easier, more secure, and more efficient?