Supporting more than 20,000 customers, Aspire Housing has affordable rental homes in Staffordshire and Cheshire, with ambitious plans to do much more in these communities over the next five years.

After Aspire Housing procured a new website and moved to HandePay, they required integration between HandePay and their Verse One Portal.

Working closely with their integration partner, Manifest Software Solutions, the Verse One self-service portal was integrated with a wide range of custom functionality, enabling the group to accept payments online and through the customer portal.

Manifest Software Solutions developed all of the integration that surfaced the data from Orchard, Keystone and Total Mobile to the portal. They also developed a range of connectors to allow customers to update information back into Orchard and take online payments. The integration provides customers with the ability to raise self-appointed repairs and manage their own appointments.

Results

5500 customers are now registered to use Aspire Housing’s online services and 75% of tenants’ payments are now being made online compared to over the phone.

Jennifer​ Montinaro, IS Applications Manager for Aspire Housing adds;

“It has been amazing as it means that most of our payments are now taken online.

Customers are no longer waiting to speak to the Customer Service Team and can now pay on any device. This increases the percentage of our telephone calls answered and improves our customer satisfaction rates as we’re answering calls quicker.”

“They are a dream to work with! Manifest Software Solutions are innovative as they are always looking at new technology to see how we can do things better. They have set a high standard that we now set for other suppliers.”

Paul Malkin, Aspire Housing’s Head of Customer Services adds

“You know the level of service you will get with Manifest Software Solutions. They are very responsive and easy to work with.

They play a key role in our projects and help us to scope out the solution before putting it into development and testing. Always keeping to timescales, they are an emergency service of sorts as they always resolve problems, even if it’s not their issue.”

Sarah Rothwell, IS Development Analyst at Aspire Housing says;

“It really easy for us to work with Manifest Software Solutions. It’s not like dealing with a third party, it’s like dealing with a really switched on in-house colleague.”

Examples of Software we integrate with:

PCIPAL

Working with Aspire Housing, Manifest Software Solutions integrated Orchard and the portal with the PCIPal compliance solution, wrapping PCIPal around HandePay before adapting and growing the solution without any service interruption.

This Telephony 8 by 8 project allows users to input their own payment details into the phone creating a much more secure way of handling data.

Paul Malkin, Aspire Housing’s Head of Customer Services, who instigated this project to meet PCIDSS compliance, said it was a very important project for Aspire Housing.

“By integrating this service into our Housing Management System, it has added an extra layer of security as the screens are secure, removing the risk of any data breaches and giving us peace of mind. We are very happy with it.”

Custom Agile App

Working with Aspire Housing, Manifest Software Solutions developed the integration to bridge the gap between the Agile mobile App and Orchard’s housing management system.

Access to Total Mobile Appointments in Orchard

Linking up the job scheduling tools with the housing management system means Aspire can now log and appoint repairs in Orchard, the job being sent in real-time to Total Mobile by the Manifest Software Solutions Universal Adapter. This integration also displays the Total Mobile appointments screen in Orchard. Manifest Software Solutions support all the integration that they provide so any issues are automatically notified to the Manifest Software Solutions’ support desk.

Sarah​ Rothwell, IS Development Analyst at Aspire Housing says;

“We have always found the support from Manifest Software Solutions to be excellent. They are very responsive, often knowing about issues before we know about them and offering to speak to other parties to resolve.”