VIVID began a digitalisation programme in 2022 with the goal of improving customer services and creating a new digital channel for customers.
The foundation of the new solution is Microsoft Dynamics 365, including Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Contact Centre, and Dynamics 365 Field Service.
VIVID has transformed the customer experience for the benefit of staff, customers, and the business, creating an omnichannel experience.
We felt the Microsoft Dynamics platform with the Microsoft-powered TechLabs, London’s iProperty Cloud solution would best enable us to offer the best digital experiences to our customers.
Alex Nagle, Customer Services Director, VIVID
Coming out of the pandemic, VIVID knew it needed to upgrade its legacy systems to modern cloud-based solutions. Very quickly, the team realised that it could do much more to improve customer experience by going beyond simply replacing like-for-like. It launched a new digital transformation programme in 2022.
“Our main goal was to improve customer experience and enable our customers to self-serve,” explains Fiona Harris, Chief Information and Data Officer at VIVID. “We want to drive efficiencies by removing inefficient manual steps, improve productivity, and provide a better service.”
The priority area for the VIVID team was the customer contact centre.
“We’re dealing with people’s homes, so it is exceptionally important to them,” emphasises Chantal Mitchell, Customer Experience Manager at VIVID.
“We want our customer’s interactions with us to measure up against the best digital experiences,” explains Duncan Short, Group Resources Director at VIVID, “and be more reflective of how things are moving in society.”
In particular, VIVID wanted to improve the digital channels in to the contact centre teams.
“The housing management systems were very old and clunky,” recalls Alex Nagle, Customer Services Director at VIVID. “We felt the Microsoft Dynamics platform with the Microsoft-powered TechLabs, London’s iProperty Cloud solution would best enable us to offer the best digital experiences to our customers.”
“We know the Microsoft stack is technology we can rely on, technology that is continually developed so we can stay current easily,” agrees Fiona Harris.
“We knew we wanted to implement Dynamics 365 Customer Service,” states Fiona Harris. “We did have a contact centre platform that we considered integrating with Dynamics 365 but, for us, it made more sense to go with a Microsoft first approach, with the Dynamics 365 Contact Centre services integrated with the rest of the Dynamics platform, Power Platform, and Azure. The idea of providing a seamless journey for our customers and our contact centre staff was very attractive to us.”
Part of this reasoning was driven by team’s past experiences trying to navigate the complexity of the incumbent systems.
Chantal Mitchell explains, “We had a spider’s web of systems before. The idea of having everything simplified and in one place was very attractive—a relief, really. And we know if you make it easier for staff to do their jobs, it will reflect in the service they provide to customers.”
The first step was to implement the core CRM elements of Microsoft Dynamics and the complaints handling functionalities. The next step, the implementation of the Dynamics 365 Contact Centre platform, was the first of its kind in the UK.
“We leant heavily into the resources available to us through our Microsoft Unified Support contract,” recalls Fiona Harris. “There’s always a risk being so ‘bleeding edge’ but that’s one of the benefits of working with an organisation like Microsoft. They are able to deploy the necessary expertise.”
Together with its Microsoft Partner, TechLabs London, VIVID drew on technical expertise through the Microsoft FastTrack team. TechLabs London worked closely with Microsoft to ensure the application of best practice, architecture, and technical advice, helping to accelerate the project and ensure engineering excellence.
Mohamed Mostafa, Managing Director at TechLabs London, says, “Our close working relationship with Microsoft was vital for the success of this project for VIVID. They enhanced their contact centre with the Microsoft Digital Contact Centre platform, integrating skill-based routing, IVR, chatbots, and Copilot. Key features include voice, chat, SMS, WhatsApp, and online accounts. Our Dynamics-based iProperty Cloud agreement management and complaints handling were also integrated. VIVID now has a solid foundation for future contact centre enhancement.
“It was a risk,” admits Duncan Short, “but we’ve been delighted that we had the courage to do it!"
Although VIVID offers flexible and hybrid working options for its contact centre staff, when it came to the launch, the VIVID team felt it was important that contact centre staff came into the office.
“It’s hard to train a contact centre during the day in working hours,” admits Alex Nagle. “So we did a lot of the training at the weekend, which added something a bit different. Our supervisor team doing the user acceptance training had been really excited about what they were seeing, so that generated a real buzz in the team. When it came to the go-live, we had everybody in the office for a couple of weeks while they were getting to grips with it. And that was just great, actually.”
“We had lots of people from TechLabs London and our own teams onsite on go-live day to help everything go smoothly—and it did,” agrees Chantal Mitchell. “We injected a bit of fun into it. Things like spot prizes for the first person to do a live chat. The emotional and technical support was much better face to face. It was the best systems launch I’ve ever been part of.”
“Our guiding principles were to reduce handoffs during a call and to eliminate inefficient manual steps,” says Alex Nagle.
Prior to the project, customers had two routes into the contact centre, the voice channel or email, and an old, unresponsive online portal. Following the deployment of Dynamics 365, customers can choose to get in touch via voice, online chat, WhatsApp, or via their online account.
“By introducing the omnichannel Dynamics 365 Contact Centre, we’ve seen a real improvement in our performance,” says Alex Nagle. “People can contact us via the website or via their online account. And they don’t need to wait as long on the phone.
Staff are finding it easier to use as well. The experience is seamless. And, as we continue to add more functionality and other systems drop away, it will only get better and better.”
The team actively promotes the online accounts via email promotions and when on calls with customers. This has led to a remarkable 45% increase in new registrations compared to last year.
Logins have increased 35% year-on-year, illustrating enhanced customer engagement via digital channels. The effect of this enhanced digital experience has been to relieve the pressure on the contact centre call handling team. There has been an 8% decrease in calls compared to the previous year.
This has resulted in a better contact centre experience for staff and customers. Average speed to answer has been cut from six minutes to 50 seconds. This has resulted in a 15% increase in answered calls—attributed to the reduction in the abandonment rate by 81%.
As a result, call centre staff can spend more time with customers. The average call handling time has increased over the period to four minutes because customers can self-serve simpler queries, leaving the call centre staff to address more complex issues.
For us, it made more sense to go with a Microsoft first approach, with the Dynamics 365 Contact Centre services integrated with the rest of the Dynamics platform, Power Platform, and Azure.
Fiona Harris, Chief Information and Data Officer, VIVID
Some of the call handling improvements can be attributed to additional work undertaken by the VIVID team in parallel with the Dynamics 365 deployment. VIVID created a comprehensive knowledge base of articles in SharePoint which can be interrogated using a customised chatbot built with Microsoft Copilot Studio.
Since its launch, knowledge articles have been viewed more than 500,000 times, supporting digital self-service and contributing to reduced voice traffic volumes.
“The knowledge base helps us to provide a better service to our customers. We used to escalate a lot of calls to our neighbourhoods team, but now we have that single point of truth to refer to instead,” says Chantal Mitchell. “We can explain the reasons behind to decisions to customers with more clarity. It’s been really helpful.”
Demand continues to grow. This year, the chatbot handled 61% more chats than the previous year.
Engagement through digital channels has surged by 72%, showing the latent customer demand for improved digital experiences.
“The online account is really good,” says Chantal Mitchell. “It feels modern. Certainly, the customers I engage with through that system love it. It comes straight through to the case handler. It has reduced double handling for us as an organisation, but it also speeds things up for the customer, which is fantastic.”
As well as streamlining processes, the new channel engagement has delivered some unexpected financial benefits for the business.
“Rents are our main income, so it is important we get cash in. The new system has exposed all payment arrears to customers, including those with whom we were struggling to engage. Suddenly they were contacting us because it was there in black and white. And more people have set up direct debits,” explains Alex Nagle. “I think the anonymousness of being able to action financial actions through a chat or online has been really helpful. It’s an unintended consequence—and a real positive.”
Now, 66% of payment transactions are processed through online accounts and more than 400 new direct debits have been set up—meaning more reliable payment schedules and more efficient payment processing.
The enhanced reporting available by pairing Microsoft Dynamics and Power Platform capabilities is helping to drive further improvement.
Duncan Short explains, “We have different information to start managing the business and I think those revelations will enable us to focus our actions and help us go forward.”
“We now want to drill down into how many of those logins, those customers, are using it, how often and what they are using,” agrees Alex Nagle. “We’re targeting different customer groups with how they can use the portal, with the goal that customers use it more and more.”
The next phase of the project is already underway.
“Repairs are something that all our customers access,” says Alex Nagle. “I’m really looking forward to adding the Dynamics 365 Field Service capabilities to our Dynamics platform. It looks great and it will be available for customers 24/7. I think it will drive even more activity online. People will be able to book, change, or cancel appointments—it’s all there at their fingertips.”
“As we develop new modules, we’ll be able to expose these to the online account. It will be a huge benefit for customers to be able to track how their repair is progressing,” she continues. “The third phase is to introduce our neighbourhoods team’s processes and that will bring even more benefits. Our future vision is clear and I think it’s great for our customers to be able to see what they will experience with us.”
“The strength of our partnership with Microsoft and our well-orchestrated teamwork with VIVID have been the catalyst for the success of this truly innovative solution all powered by world-class Microsoft technology,” says Mohamed Mostafa.
“This truly successful partnership wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our colleagues in the Microsoft engineering team, Microsoft UK, and, in particular, the FastTrack team,” he emphasises. “Microsoft worked hand in glove with TechLabs London and VIVID as one joint team to deliver this innovative digital contact centre solution, including omnichannel contact centre, voice over IVR, chatbots, skills-based routing, and more.”
Fiona Harris confirms, “Having the single point of contact through Microsoft Unified Support and our Customer Success Account Manager who could put the tentacles out to the relevant teams in Microsoft was really, really important and that’s why we’re continuing to work with Unified Support now.”
Later this year, an updated version of the chatbot will go live, incorporating some of the generative AI capabilities of Copilot Studio. It is expected this will further enhance the customer experience and drive efficiencies.
Chantal Mitchell says, “As we introduce more natural language processing capabilities into the chatbot, it will deliver much more tailored, useful, and relevant answers to customers, based on the content in our knowledge base articles. I think that will be a very positive development for us.”
“The developments to the Dynamics 365 Contact Centre Services are also very exciting—we’ll have a much more robust voice channel,” adds Fiona Harris. “The beauty is the technology is constantly evolving and we’ll be able to keep up rather than stagnate.”
“We can actually see the changes in Microsoft’s roadmap and they are progressing quickly,” agrees Alex Nagle. “I think this is the big leap forward from what we had before. It feels like a completely different approach.”
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