Robots have halved the housing applications times at Hoas

Since 2017, Hoas, in cooperation with Sisua Digital (formerly Eera), has utilized software robotics to improve customer service and manage the annual congestion peak by delegating the processing of applications to a robot.

“In July-October, the robot has already processed more than 8,400 applications. This has taken about 400 hours, when people would have spent almost twice as much on the same workload, about 700 hours,” describes Riitta Pulkka, Hoas’ Customer Relationship Manager, in 2017 in the beginning of their robotics journey.

The robot fully handles the pre-processing of applications. For example, it checks applicants’ credit information to see if they have other current applications or if they already live with Hoas. About 2 minutes of the customer service staff’s time is freed up per one application. Thanks to the software robots, Hoas customers receive faster information about their application being received and that they have a place in the housing queue.

The robot goes through the list of incoming applications four times a day: twice at night, once in the morning and once during the day. When pre-processing is done at night, customer service representatives will be able to resume applications right from the morning.

Experiences in software robotics have been good. Between 2018 and 2021, Hoas expanded the responsibilities of the software robots besides application processing to financial management and automation of resident communication. Read more about their experiences with automation here.