Digital leader Active Housing has doubled portal adoption as social landlords scale the digital experience delivering better outcomes for residents.
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As demand for faster and more transparent services continues to rise across the UK housing sector, portals are becoming essential infrastructure enabling residents to self-serve in their own time.
Use cases include reporting repairs, tracking progress, paying rent, checking statements or accessing key information whilst simultaneously reducing pressure on internal teams.
Portals give housing providers greater visibility into resident needs, enabling teams to prioritise work more effectively, improve response times and deliver a more consistent experience for residents across homes and communities.
Since the acquisition of Active Housing by Plentific in June 2023, Active Housing’s resident portal solutions have grown from 400,000 to 800,000 homes accessing services online. New clients include Amplius, CDS Co-operatives, Great Places, Hexagon, Karbon Homes, Linc, Magenta Living, Metra Living, Peabody, Plymouth Community Homes, Salix Homes, Settle, Stockport Homes, Tai Tarian, Town & Country Housing, Trivallis and Waltham Forest Council.
To mark this milestone, Active Housing has used its expertise to produce a Guide to launching a successful portal in 10 steps, with the most effective portals having a clear purpose, aligning with long-term wider service strategies, rather than being treated as standalone tools.
Simon Wilkes, Head of Resident Experience – Plentific, said:
“Over the past two and a half years, our clients have been steadily redefining how they engage with residents. What was once a gradual shift toward digital self-service has accelerated into a fundamental transformation, one where resident portals now sit at the centre of service delivery.
“Resident expectations are changing fast with a fundamental shift in how services are experienced. For social landlords, the focus is providing services that are not only efficient, but designed around the real needs of residents, enabling consistent experiences and true self-service built to last.
“As the sector continues to evolve, resident portals will play an increasingly important role in shaping housing services. With ongoing investment in user experience, product innovation and sector collaboration, the opportunity is not just to digitise existing processes but to fundamentally improve them.”
Julia Crossman, Head of Resident Experience Delivery – Plentific, added:
“The most important factor in launching a successful resident portal is being clear on its purpose and the outcomes you want to achieve. When housing providers take the time to define this upfront and build on strong, long-lasting relationships with their residents they see much higher engagement and long-term success.
“Without scalable digital services in place, housing providers risk rising operational pressure, slower response times and declining resident satisfaction.
“The goal is simple: to help organisations not just launch a portal but build a service that residents actively choose to use.”
10 Steps To Successfully Launch A Resident Portal – A Guide for Housing Providers
