Illustration of two residents messaging askporter in different languages and getting instant, understood responses

askporter Housing — Accessibility

Every resident reaches you. Without an app, login, or barrier.

One in five UK adults lives with a disability. Many more speak English as a second language or find portal logins overwhelming. askporter reaches them on their channel, in their words, from day one.

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The accessibility gap

Most housing systems were built for the average resident. The average resident doesn't exist.

Roughly one in five UK adults lives with a disability. Around three million UK households include someone with a long-term health condition. A meaningful share of renters uses English as a second language, and many more find portal logins, PDFs and downloadable apps actively off-putting. Every one of those front doors filters out the residents who most need to reach you. Contact centre load climbs. Compliance evidence fragments. And under the Equality Act 2010 and the regulator's Consumer Standards, reasonable adjustment is an obligation you evidence — not a favour you grant. Accessibility isn't a feature. It's whether your operating model works for the residents you actually house.

More than half of social renting households, 56%, or 2.3 million homes, have at least one member with a long-term illness or disability.

Measurable from the start

What changes when every resident can reach you.

Illustration of a person relaxing outdoors surrounded by icons representing askporter's communication and support capabilities

Reduce digital-exclusion drop-off

Residents reach you on WhatsApp, SMS, web chat or email — no app to download, no portal to log into, no password to remember. Every resident, regardless of digital confidence, has a way in.

No app, no login

Increase first-contact resolution across every audience

Multilingual AI reads the resident's message in the language they wrote it, diagnoses the issue, and books the job — without asking them to translate, simplify, or repeat themselves.

Any language, any channel

Reduce the hardest calls on your contact centre

The residents your team spends longest with — language barriers, cognitive load, repeat visits — are the ones askporter handles first. Your team focuses on genuine escalations.

First-contact, first language

Eliminate evidence gaps on reasonable adjustment

Every contact, every channel, every triage, every resolution — timestamped, attributed, exportable. If a resident's reasonable adjustment request is ever challenged or disputed, the record of what was asked for and what happened is already there — not reconstructed from memory weeks later.

Full audit trail, per resident

Clear page titles adjustment

A vague or missing tab title means guessing, for a resident using a screen reader with several windows open. A clear one means finding what they need without the friction.

No guessing

Replies announced automatically

When the assistant responds, screen readers announce it straight away — no manually leaving the input field to discover a reply has landed.

Announced automatically

Structure that holds without styling

Strip the visual design away — how some assistive technology experiences the page — and the structure still makes sense on its own.

Structure, not styling

Tested on real assistive technology

Every update is tested with VoiceOver on Apple devices and Google's TalkBack on Android — not just checked against a specification.

VoiceOver & TalkBack tested

One platform, four user types

Who feels the change first.

Residents who couldn't reach you before

Residents with limited English, low digital confidence, or additional needs reach you on the channel they already use, in the words they already write. The webchat is also tested for screen readers, switch control, and voice navigation — not just designed for typical use.

Illustration of an older resident approved for support on a laptop, alongside a younger resident getting a message translated on their phone

Housing officers & customer service teams

The hardest calls — language barriers, cognitive load, vulnerable circumstances — triaged before they escalate. Your team responds where humans matter most.

Illustration of a customer service agent at a desk using an AI assistant to manage maintenance and cleaning tasks

Equality, EDI & Customer Experience leads

Reasonable adjustment evidenced, not assumed. TSM outcomes improve across every resident group. The audit trail is ready before the regulator asks.

Illustration of a director reviewing rising TSM score and falling service-call volume charts on a dashboard

Customer receiving automated confirmation message on their phone after reporting an issue

A person reporting a facilities issue via the askporter chat assistant on their smartphone, illustrating how task raisers can log and track maintenance requests instantly from any location.

A facilities manager using askporter to send a proactive maintenance notification, composing a message about a planned lift inspection and selecting which service users and contractors to notify — all from within the task record.

Three capabilities, one platform — applied to BTR.

Capability 1 of 3

Resident Engagement

The front door every resident can walk through

24/7 first response across WhatsApp, SMS, web chat and email — no app to download, no portal login, no password to remember. Multilingual and plain-language by default, built for the residents most likely to be locked out, not just the ones most likely to log in.

Explore Resident Engagement

Capability 2 of 3

Smart Repairs

Diagnosis in the resident's own words, not a form field

The AI asks follow-up questions in the same language, at the same reading level, until it has what the contractor needs. Appointments book without a login, and contractors arrive briefed on any reasonable adjustment — mobility, vulnerability, language preference — before they knock.

Explore Smart Repairs

Capability 3 of 3

Proactive Care

Reaching the residents least likely to reach you

Outbound check-ins go out in the resident's own language, on the channel they already use, at a pace they can handle. Vulnerability signals surface early from replies — evidence of active care for the residents the Consumer Standards were written to protect.

Explore Proactive Care

From First Message to Full Record

One resident's journey, without barriers.

The resident reaches out in their own language

A WhatsApp message arrives — a photo, three sentences, a language other than English. The AI reads it and replies in the same language.

Diagnosis in the resident's words

Follow-up questions land in the same language at the same reading level. No translation burden on the resident. No handoff to a bilingual officer.

The contractor sees what the resident needs

Reasonable-adjustment flags — mobility aid, interpreter preference, vulnerability indicator — surface on the job brief before the contractor arrives.

Evidence captured at source

Photos, sign-off, timestamp — logged against both the SOR and the Equality Act audit trail in a single action.

The regulator sees what you did

Every reasonable adjustment, every multilingual interaction, every vulnerability escalation exportable on demand. The Consumer Standards evidence pack writes itself.

Real-world accessibility scenarios

What this looks like on a Tuesday night — or a Friday morning.

Reach

A damp report at 10pm, in Urdu, on WhatsApp.

A resident sends a photo of a mould patch and three sentences in Urdu. askporter classifies the hazard, starts the Awaab's Law clock, and asks two follow-up questions — in Urdu. By midnight the investigation slot is booked. Your out-of-hours team never took a call.

Adjustments

A TSM survey, sent the way this resident needs it.

A resident's file flags a reasonable adjustment: large print, no digital contact. When the quarterly TSM survey campaign goes out, askporter follows the flag automatically: a printed copy, not a text link. No manual list-checking. No resident falling through the net because the default channel didn't fit them.

Inclusion

A resident with a learning disability books a repair appointment.

A resident who finds portal logins and long forms overwhelming sends a plain-language message about a broken tap. askporter replies with a single appointment suggestion — one button, one day, one time — in simple language. The resident confirms. No IVR. No hold time.

No app. No login. No portal.

Why accessibility with askporter isn't a feature on a roadmap.

Three smiling people looking at a smartphone together, with a notification bubble, symbolising friendly interaction.

Accessible by default, because no app, no login, no portal.

The biggest accessibility barrier is the one before the system. Disabled people are over 50% more likely to face barriers accessing digital services, and 84% of over-60s say nothing would get them online.¹ askporter supports the channels that residents already use — WhatsApp, SMS, web, email. No download, no password, no account. For the residents most likely to give up on a portal login, there's no portal to give up on.

¹ Scope, Accessibility and Disability UK Statistics; ONS, Exploring the UK's Digital Divide.

Illustration representing resident feedback in their own words

Multilingual AI, not translation bolt-on.

Most housing systems translate the form and then revert to English when the resident replies. askporter understands the resident in the language they wrote, asks the next question in the same language, and passes the thread to the contractor brief without English becoming the common denominator.

Illustration of compliance evidence linked to Equality Act and Consumer Standards requirements

Reasonable adjustment in the audit trail, not in a spreadsheet.

Every flag, every adjustment, every interpreter note — attached to the job and the resident record. Your Equality Act evidence and your Consumer Standards evidence are the same evidence. One trail, two reports.

Illustration representing an automated conversation starting

The inbound you're missing is the one you most need to hear.

The residents least likely to raise a repair are the ones most at risk of an uninspected hazard. Proactive Care reaches out in the resident's language, on the resident's channel, on the schedule the regulator expects. Inbound becomes evidence, not silence.

Proof across every property we protect.

These numbers aren't the story of one accessible-housing customer. They're the operating reality across the askporter Housing base — every resident, every repair, every channel. Accessibility isn't a case-study carve-out. It's how the platform runs.

Illustration symbolising business growth and platform scale, alongside askporter's key performance statistics

500,000+

Assets managed across the Housing portfolio

97%

First-time diagnostic accuracy (L&G Affordable Homes, verified)

4.7

Resident CSAT on inbound resolution (L&G Affordable Homes, verified)

Karen Heaney
Director of Investment & Compliance, Legal and General Affordable Homes

Read the full case study

"We want a diagnosis approach that is easy and intuitive for the customer, and results in a first-time fix. And that's what we did with askporter."

Ready to reach every resident?

Book a 30-minute walkthrough. We'll show you an accessibility-first resident journey in your housing context — multilingual, multi-channel, no app, no login — and the evidence trail your regulator and your EDI lead both need. We bring the platform; you bring the residents your current system misses.