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When you're doing repairs, it's not just a case of saying "what's broken?", you need a bit more explanation. In Hackney, our customers speak lots of languages and English may not be their first.

So, last September, we looked at what languages there were in the area and took them into account when we updated our call centre.

It hasn't been as difficult as we thought it would be, although it has taken a while to recruit. Our eight staff speak six languages apart from English, in order of popularity: Turkish, Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, Swahili and Bemba.

We've tried to recruit people who are multilingual, but we've had to balance that with their call-centre skills.

We've also had to be a bit more creative with our advertising – including Turkish headlines, for example – and we've established relationships with agencies so they understand what we're looking for.

In order to encourage staff, our reward system now reflects their ability to speak another language. They get a bonus equivalent to 5% of their salary.

We also bought a new phone system, so we can manage calls more effectively, and extended the centre's opening hours, so we have people working different shifts.

It's not always easy to guarantee a language will be available at all hours, but people have learned that they are available and we take their details and ask the right person to call them back.

We've found the response from tenants to be really positive – they really appreciate our being able to communicate.