There are many types of service management businesses working in a range of markets. Service management is also all about service delivery but is influenced and affected by the social, cultural, political and economical environment in which it operates.

One particular example is social housing providers, who manage stocks of housing in which a vast range of tenants live, which all brings ongoing maintenance, repairs and customer satisfaction challenges.

So what’s the current context that social housing operates within?

Social housing context

Within social housing there is a huge amount of change which is having a dramatic effect on the way repairs and maintenance services are being delivered.

With the emergence of co-regulation, customers are becoming more influential within their schemes and estates, and providers are requiring more robust self assessment and quality assurance, alongside what the Tenant Services Authority calls its “backbone of regulation”.

The localism agenda has also seen customers become more involved in making local decisions about service standards and spending priorities; whilst The Big Society agenda has put a greater focus on community investment and stronger links with local partners.

How can new technology help?

Because service management includes a range of businesses working in diverse market places, the most leading-edge service management software will have been developed to support businesses of all sizes and all markets. It will have attributes such as flexibility to ensure it succeeds across markets.

Many field service management software development companies have expressed the opinion that the businesses they work with will have some similar requirements. But what unites them all is the definite need to maximise the productivity of a mobile workforce, manage customer touch points effectively and have asset information in one place that’s easy to manage.

For social housing providers this can mean software is able to provide vital support to their maintenance and repairs teams and help them to work more productively and efficiently. It also means that mobile devices can be integrated into service delivery, so workers have easy access to customer details, job info and workflows to ensure the customer experience “on the ground” is the best it can be.

It’s also clear that what differentiates businesses is the complexity and scale of their operations, together with the capability they need from new technology. So many software providers will have created different software editions designed to deal with different levels of complexity, be scalable and meet specific business needs. This means vital support for the smallest provider to the largest provider.

So, service management businesses more than ever need to ensure service delivery is customer focused and delivered efficiently and effectively. But also needs to seize the power and potential of new technology to drive service delivery no matter the market a business is operating in.

Oneserve is a trailblazing technology company developing and providing leading-edge software to support service management businesses and service delivery.