Al Davies, Business Development Manager at ArvatoConnect, explores how innovative digital agent solutions are helping housing associations strengthen out-of-hours services – supporting vulnerable tenants faster and creating space for more proactive care.
Let’s be honest, supporting tenants outside normal working hours has never been a walk in the park.
When a resident calls about a burst pipe at 2am, or a vulnerable tenant reaches out in distress, it’s those small on-call teams holding the fort. The pressure’s real, the responsibility’s huge and compassion can’t clock off at 5pm.
But those pressures are growing.
Tenants are dealing with rising rents, complex welfare needs and those recurring headaches like damp, mould and leaks. Meanwhile, housing providers are juggling shrinking budgets, new compliance rules and ambitious sustainability goals. It’s a lot.
At the Social Housing Finance Conference earlier this year, I heard the same thing from leaders across the sector: long-term rent uncertainty, contractor collapses and capital constraints are forcing providers to do more with less. Meanwhile, tenants expect support that’s instant and 24/7 because, let’s face it, problems don’t stick to office hours.
That’s why housing providers are starting to rethink how they deliver out-of-hours support.
And that’s where digital agents come in – a smarter, more affordable alternative for a sector that’s too often weighed down by legacy systems.
Smart tech, human touch
Digital agents are a game-changer for how housing associations manage both out-of-hours services and day-to-day operations. They’re not here to replace people, they’re here to give us time and headspace to do what only humans can – support tenants who really need it.
In an ideal setup, digital agents handle the routine elements like repairs, rent checks and maintenance updates while passing on the urgent or sensitive stuff, like safeguarding concerns or welfare calls, to real people.
Where they really shine is out of hours. They deliver reliable, round-the-clock support without needing huge on-call teams or antisocial shift patterns. Tenants get help when they need it, and housing providers can reduce emergency callouts and unnecessary handovers, all while still keeping a human escalation point for when things really matter.
By day, the same tech gives housing officers time back to focus on the things that actually move the needle like connecting tenants with financial guidance, mental health support or practical help when life gets complicated.
The result? Faster responses, less stress for teams, and more time spent on what actually makes a difference.
And it’s not just operationally clever, it’s socially powerful. When housing officers have the time and insight to connect tenants with the right support, it’s not just good service, it can be life changing.
Examples in action
That balance between digital capability and human care isn’t just a theory, it’s already working across the UK.
Take one large London borough, home to nearly 200,000 residents in one of the country’s most diverse and economically challenged areas. With more than 300,000 calls a year, the customer service team couldn’t possibly spot vulnerable residents manually, especially those who hadn’t declared their circumstances.
So, they’ve introduced cutting-edge speech analytics. Now, every call is checked automatically for signs of distress, financial strain or accessibility needs. Employees can step in faster, connecting residents to the right support before problems escalate. And the result is a service that sees more, understands more and, most importantly, cares more.
It’s a powerful example of how technology can empower people to deliver better care. Our research backs this up. Almost half (47%) of UK adults identify as having one or more characteristics of vulnerability from health conditions and financial struggles to life challenges. Yet 44% say they’ve never had a positive experience relating to that vulnerability. At the same time, more than half (56%) believe AI could meet their needs as well as a human, and 78% still want some level of human interaction.
So, the takeaway’s pretty clear that housing associations have a real chance to build trust by getting the tenant experience right, not by going all in on tech, but by blending empathy with innovation.
That means using enhanced data visibility and real-time tenant insights, backed by tools like Automate and Review.
Automate helps teams get the more repetitive tasks done faster and with fewer manual steps, while Review analyses processes, spots where automation can help and suggests ways to keep improving.
Meanwhile, omni-channel platforms and agentic AI (the clever tech behind digital agents) can handle out-of-hours enquiries, resolve routine issues and send urgent ones straight to the human team. It’s a partnership that just works.
Inclusion by design
This whole “tech + care” philosophy runs through everything we do at ArvatoConnect.
When the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) launched a campaign to support fuel-poor households, we designed an accessible, user-friendly service that removed barriers for people with limited digital literacy, device access or reliance on carers.
Similarly, working with a Government agency on their first online census, we set up a contact centre to help the public complete their returns. Agents were trained to support individuals with different needs, using technology and specialist language tools to guide them through each question, and even input answers directly when people struggled.
The same principles apply to housing. As providers embrace digital transformation for out-of-hours responses, repairs and tenant engagement they must design with empathy from the start. When AI and automation, and people work together, services become faster, fairer and more transparent.
Ultimately, with more residents needing support, whether because of age, disability, financial pressure or social isolation, technology done right gives teams the time and tools to offer every tenant something priceless – reassurance. The reassurance that help is always there, especially when it matters most.
And if we can do that while giving teams their evenings back and building services that genuinely make lives better? Well, that’s a win-win.
