Social Housing Providers: Using Smart Housing Software for Damp and Mould Risk Management

22nd September 2024

by Mark Gannon

Housing providers want their tenants to be safe, healthy and comfortable in their homes. To achieve this, they need to be proactive in managing and maintaining risk across their housing stock. And this includes damp and mould risk management.

Tackling damp and mould in social housing, especially for potentially vulnerable tenants, is a significant issue for many housing providers, as recent reports by the Regulator of Social Housing have shown.

The introduction of new Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) also requires housing providers to gather data, relating to keeping properties in good repair and effective complaints handling. And housing providers need efficient, fit-for-purpose ways to meet these demands.

Smart solutions for housing providers

Manual systems aren’t working when it comes to achieving better control. Resources are stretched and data is spread across departments, getting stuck in application silos. Getting the right solutions in place to get a handle on data and risks, about providers’ housing stock and tenant engagement, can take a long time and be very expensive. So, how can housing providers get damp and mould risk management right?

By using smart solutions — including intelligent automation and internet of things (IOT) technology — housing providers can significantly reduce their risk management burden. And they can help housing providers better engage with tenants, leading to improved tenant satisfaction.

Tackling mould and damp with cloud-based housing software

The good news is Netcall specialises in customer and tenant experience case management. To support housing providers in managing damp and mould risk, we have a number of applications built on our Tenant Hub solution.

These applications automate mould and damp case identification, giving providers the tools they need — helping them proactively engage with tenants to enhance their safety, health and comfort, and ensure they can respond to new TSM requirements.

These applications include:

• A speech-to-text analysis tool — searches for keywords related to mould and damp, in calls from tenants, with the ability to action these insights
• An IOT platform — manages IOT devices and handles alerts from IOT devices that measure environmental conditions in tenants’ properties, with actionable insights
• A complaints handling module — helps manage the end-to-end complaints process more efficiently
• An outbound campaign module — lets housing providers proactively manage engagement, supporting tenants on issues such as mould and damp, cost of living or fuel poverty

Streamlined housing software solutions for mould and damp

Housing providers can make the switch to effective damp and mould risk management — combining these applications immediately, to:

• Get a real-time picture of a property’s environmental condition to enable proactive, remedial action
• Ensure tenant calls about damp and mould are recognised, individually counted and actioned via intelligent case management
• Use data from IOT sensors in tenant homes to proactively identify damp and mould risks and automate alerts. Netcall’s IoT solution uses device feeds for baseline monitoring, that then drives automatic case management, team updates and escalations
• Automatically generate cases within our Tenant Hub solution using intelligent workflow
• Support repairs teams with robust reporting — including hotspot identification, trend reporting and repeat issues
• Free data from silos with our powerful suite of application integrations, to provide actionable insights across the whole organisation
• Deliver daily management dashboards, highlighting lists of identified cases
• Proactively engage with tenants so they are heard, making sure the issues they raise are managed effectively