Getting to an 8+ for customer satisfaction with RPA
Rob the Robot
9 processes robotized
Tobias AX, Outlook,
KofaX, E-content
Vidomes is a housing corporation with approximately 18,000 homes in the Delft region. Vidomes is ambitious when it comes to process improvement and innovation. An important goal here is to improve service to tenants. Vidomes uses RPA as a tool to make this goal possible.
RPA pilot from A+: Tacstone emerges victorious
In 2017, Vidomes started a collaboration with 7 other housing corporations under the name A+. These corporations not only have the same core mission – namely to build, manage and rent good quality and affordable housing – but also have in common that they use the same ERP system TobiasAX. Because of the great similarities, there are many opportunities to work together in improving and digitizing processes. With that idea, A+ started an RPA pilot. In this pilot, two vendors were given the opportunity to prove themselves. Tacstone seized this opportunity with both hands and emerged as the winner after the pilot. With that, a promising new partnership was born. Vidomes decided to continue immediately after the pilot.
Rob the Robot: Employee Accounts Payable 2.0
There was great enthusiasm within Vidomes to continue with RPA immediately after the pilot. Frensis van den Berg, employee accounts payable, and Tineke de Vries (business advisor Computerization & Digitalization) gladly took a pioneering role. Frensis had seen firsthand in the pilot how the software robot could take over a time-consuming and tedious task from her.
“‘I have been performing general ledger account settlements almost daily for years. I use TobiasAX and Excel for this, but I actually do the same manual actions within those applications all the time. The robot can perform all these actions automatically, including writing them to Excel and working with pivot tables. The robot not only performs these actions at lightning speed, but also always 100% error-free. At first I was really surprised that the robot could perform my process so accurately, but by now I’m completely used to it. And to be honest, I already wouldn’t want to be without my new digital colleague. An additional advantage of applying RPA is that you are forced, so to speak, to make a good description and analysis of a process. This is necessary to get all the steps and decision rules clear so that the robot can be instructed precisely. This quickly reveals opportunities to make a process smarter or more efficient.”
Frensis van den Berg | Employee Accounts Payable.
More work to do for Rob
Vidomes has developed a clear strategy to expand the application of RPA within the organization step-by-step. The goal here is to first primarily gain experience with the entire process from ideation to the development and implementation of new automated processes. In the beginning, these could therefore also be processes that mainly take place “under the hood”. Examples include processing electronic daily statements, merging attachments from e-mails and sending notifications about outstanding invoices to employees. By now, six of these processes have already been automated and added to Rob the Robot’s range of tasks. No problem for Rob, by the way. After all, he is available 7 days a week and 24 hours a day. He doesn’t get sick, doesn’t have to go on vacation or even take a break.
Toward an 8+ for customer satisfaction
At Vidomes, Tineke de Vries is responsible for the RPA project. She shows colleagues in different departments what is possible and retrieves new ideas that are tested by and validated with Tacstone. For each new idea a mini-business case is made as it were: what are the expected benefits in terms of saving time, reducing workload, shortening response times, avoiding errors, etc. Is RPA indeed the best solution or are there other possibilities? What is the cost of developing and managing the robot script? And what is the payback period?
“In the beginning of our RPA project, we mainly focused on gaining knowledge and experience. By now we are a step further. We are looking closely at where RPA has the most added value within Vidomes. Now increasing customer satisfaction is also more in the picture. For example, we are specifically looking at where RPA can be deployed to reduce response times to tenant questions. Or to streamline downtime for repair requests. In addition, we are thinking about what an optimal cooperation looks like between the Vidomes employees and our new digital colleague. So an exciting process, in which we will undoubtedly learn a lot.”
Tineke de Vries | Business Advisor Computerization & Digitization
“Continue to actively seek cooperation.”
Vidomes has made an energetic start as a follow-up to the successful RPA pilot. Parteon is the second housing corporation from A+ to join and so the cooperation in the field of RPA is gradually taking shape. As knowledge partner and supplier Tacstone Technology is pleased with this development. By building a library of reusable robot scripts together, the participants can immediately benefit from shorter development times and lower costs. This fits very well with the ambition the A+ corporations had when they formed their partnership.
“RPA is pre-eminently an application where the A+ collaboration offers opportunities for faster and smarter innovation, with lower costs and less risk. We are now only at the beginning of this journey of discovery, I am very curious to see what this will bring in the coming years!”
Marije de Vreeze | Manager of Computerization & Digitization
More about Vidomes
Vidomes is an entrepreneurial housing corporation on the outskirts of Haaglanden. They focus on people with insufficient opportunities in the housing market. Vidomes manages and rents about 18,000 homes in Zoetermeer, Leidschendam-Voorburg, Delft and Rijswijk and the Hague district Leidschenveen.
