emh: Our community WhatsApp success 

Midlands landlord emh explains how setting up a community WhatsApp group has made frictionless resident-landlord communication a reality.  

At emh, IT constantly asks a simple but powerful question: how can technology act as a critical business enabler to make it easier for residents to reach us and get the support they need?  

The introduction of WhatsApp is one of many ways IT has helped us resolve real business problems. This change was not driven by technology for its own sake but by a clear service need identified through resident engagement.

Residents told us they wanted quicker, simpler and more flexible ways to communicate. They are balancing work, family and everyday life, and long phone queues or formal emails are not always realistic. Rather than expecting residents to adapt to us, IT enabled the business to meet people where they already are.

Through ongoing engagement, feedback and day-to-day conversations, a consistent message emerged: accessibility, speed and simplicity matter. IT worked closely with customer services, customer voice, digital and implementation teams to translate that need into a practical, scalable solution. WhatsApp stood out as a familiar and widely used platform, but its success has been about how it was implemented, not just the channel itself.

Residents helped shape how the service works in practice — from the types of queries it supports to the tone of communication — ensuring it feels human, responsive and inclusive rather than transactional. Behind the scenes, ICT acted as an enabler, integrating WhatsApp into existing systems, supporting colleagues with the right tools and confidence, and ensuring safeguarding, data protection and service standards remained front and centre. This work turned a resident-led idea into a secure, reliable and sustainable service the business can depend on. 

This approach reflects how IT operates at emh: embedded in the business, focussed on outcomes and accountable for solving real problems rather than operating as a back-office function one step removed.

As Dal Grewal, our director of IT and digital services, explains: “We are here to ensure everything we do remains customer focussed. I regularly ask the team a simple question: how does this improve the lives of our residents? Our approach to IT is clear — we exist to solve business problems and enable better services, not to sit in the background.”

We are already seeing the impact through a more inclusive and accessible service, where residents have genuine choice in how they contact us. This is what good service design looks like at emh: listening first, enabling the business through technology and delivering solutions that make a real difference. 

Image courtesy of emh