Listening to our customers' changing needs

In the same way we grow and evolve as a business, so too do our customers. Social housing has always served a rich mix of tenants and we are seeing that continue to expand. We see customers facing significant hardship or poverty, but we are also seeing customers accessing social housing who in previous years would have had a choice of tenure. As our customer base changes and grows, so does the expectations on us as a housing provider.

We have always been held to account for completing the necessary work for our customers in a timely and effective manner, whether we have met those expectations or not. But more recently, we are seeing our customers valuing the quality of those interactions and the conversations we have with them.

When our customers are contacting us, they want their requests handled. But they also want to feel listened to and to feel confident that we will address the things that matter specifically to them as an individual. As a sector, we must stop viewing these conversations with our customers as a service provider and a user. We must view it for what it is, a person talking to another person.

It is perhaps not a surprise that many of the issues raised by the Housing Ombudsman across the sector relate to the communication we have with customers. We can see that in the answers our customers have provided as part of the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). Our customers care about the quality of the service they receive from their housing provider, just as they would in any other aspect of their lives.

 

With that increasing expectation of quality though also comes a greater understanding from our customer too. They want to be treated as people, as individuals, rather than service users. That means positive communication doesn’t always have to be us telling our customer we can do something quicker for them. Our customers are looking for compassion and honesty from us, not miracles. If a customer has a complex problem that may take more time, we are seeing our customers are willing to accept that provided they are given an honest, realistic timeline and we ensure we follow through on the delivery.

Just as they are more willing to hold us to account publicly, they are also willing to form that trust with us. But trust is earned, not given, and we must show them we can deliver on the timelines we promise them.

For myself, it has been an exciting time to step into this role at Home Group because this is the direction we are firmly committed to. We want to make sure our targets as an organisation are not just about the numbers, but about the outcomes we deliver for customers, as this is what we can see our customers are telling us they want.

All of that requires us to be an agile and more transparent business. We have already seen the range of tenants accessing social housing is widening and there will be new challenges to come. Not every customer wants or needs an issue handled in the same way, and if we are to truly deliver quality service for them, we need to be able to adapt appropriately to that.

If we look more widely at society, we know the challenges facing us are changing too. For example, among our younger generations, we are still finding out the full impacts the pandemic had on them and their families. We see higher instances of anxiety and mental health, and greater demand for access to care and support. These all impact on families, and by extension, on ourselves as social housing providers. Some of these people are likely already living in social housing, and others may become our customers in the future. They will all bring with them their own unique needs and expectations in how we engage with them.

Likewise, we are seeing some people in society who are highly digitally orientated and demand to engage with us this way. They want to take advantage of the latest technology, and we are absolutely catering for that demand. But there are others, through both circumstance and through choice, who remain entirely digitally disconnected. We can never sacrifice the quality of communication with one group for the benefit of another. There is almost certain to be lots of new innovations and strategies over the coming months and years to engage diverse, differing customers. Some will work, some will not. But throughout it all, we must not lose sight of the basic tenants of good communication and ensure that our customers, regardless of who they are and how we are communicating with them, feel valued and listened to.

At Home Group, we have done great work already at engaging our customers. We have some truly inspiring customers involved on our board and in our steering groups. We see customers regularly going out and attending our properties and services, assessing how they are working and talking directly customer-to-customer to get honest feedback. Our customers help us hire the right colleagues for the business.

Customers tell us if we aren’t getting it right as a sector, we must welcome that and continue to provide them with the mechanisms to do so.

What we now must do is ensure that those customers helping to steer us are truly diverse and as reflective of social housing as possible. The customer of the future – and the customer of now, truly – is one who comes in all shapes, with all types of experiences and needs, but what connects them is they want to feel valued, feel listened to, and be able to trust that we have their best intentions at the forefront of everything we do.

I believe we can get there as a sector, but it starts with honesty and really listening to our customers whenever we speak to them.