In almost every walk of life, the pace of technological change in the last few years has been dramatic: Lockdowns undoubtedly accelerated many organisations’ plans for ‘digital first’ operations, but the longer-term impacts on society, and on our individual behaviours are becoming clear.
And while in many sectors all this change has been welcomed with open arms, in others, it can threaten to leave people behind, disrupt support systems and isolate those in need of help.
Preventing a digital divide
While web portals and maintenance request applications undoubtedly have a strong role to play in the current and future relationships between housing associations and their tenants, one of their shortcomings is that certain members of the community – often those in most need of support – are simply unable to use them – lack of access to technology, lack of IT / web literacy, or disabilities can all prevent tenants from accessing these platforms, potentially causing a “digital divide” when it comes not just to their customer experience, but more deeply, around the quality of support they have access to.
AdEPT Technology Group plc is one of the UK’s leading COMMS integrators providing best of breed solutions from every UK network.