How changes to our repairs process helps us to better support vulnerable customers

Last year, the Housing Ombudsman published its spotlight report into the equal treatment for customers, highlighting vulnerability among customers.

The Ombudsman said that some housing associations’ approaches to customers with vulnerabilities needed much more focus.

The report outlined the complexity of vulnerability, and the many forms it takes. For example, a customer can be vulnerable in the traditional understanding of the word, but it can also encompass short-term vulnerability, such as grief, financial distress or their environment.

When the Ombudsman identified the issues for customers with vulnerabilities, they stemmed from breakdown in communication or relationships. These mostly fell into two categories: people and processes.

Before the Ombudsman embarked on the Spotlight Report, we had already taken a close look at our approach in relation to our more vulnerable customers, with a view to find opportunities to improve on our existing approach.

The first place we started was with our newly formed in-house repairs and maintenance team, who we were able to integrate into the organisation and in particular, with housing colleagues.

Repairs colleagues are very often a first point of contact with a vulnerable customer, and we now have processes and safeguards in place to respond to these, as well as ensure that we can report and escalate unrecorded vulnerabilities.

Our repairs and maintenance colleagues are provided with training to handle difficult situations that can come from this and ensure there is colleague support on hand.

But we know these colleagues are, first and foremost, there to do a specific job. They do not necessarily have the pre-existing relationship or information about that customer to be closely connected enough to support a customer with vulnerabilities. That why it is so important that they are integrated into a wider support network.

And by working more closely with housing managers, for example, it has proven to be a much better experience for vulnerable customers.

Another area in which we have enhanced our support for customers with varying vulnerabilities is with our estate liaison officers (ELO).

Within Home Group, we saw an opportunity to enhance our customers’ experiences if we focussed our ELO roles on earlier, more front-end involvement with our repairs process.

By involving ELO colleagues earlier in the outset, we can understand the requirements of a job not only on paper, but the potential impact on our customers. Particularly with customers who might have vulnerabilities.

The same job can look very different for two of our customers. For example, if we need to lift a floor in a property it can have a much bigger impact on a customer’s life if they are an elderly person or someone with mobility issues.

It means if we have to instigate additional steps to meet a customer’s needs then it takes a burden off the maintenance colleague specifically there for the job, which has a positive knock on effect for the customer.

The simple mental shift we as an organisation adopted though – and which reflects the advice we often see from the Housing Ombudsman – is not to cherry pick which jobs get an ELO colleague’s involvement. Instead, it is to ask on every single maintenance job, the question ‘does this need or benefit from having an ELO involved?’.

In most cases, the answer is still no, but it means we know we won’t miss the opportunities where it will make a difference, and we can accommodate any need.

Setting out with that simple ask before each job works to keep us always in check. It keeps the customer’s needs at the heart of what we do, not just the repairs job on paper.

Particularly when working with customers with vulnerabilities, which can be relatively common and at times quite complex, sharing that responsibility across the best qualified colleagues within the business can make a significant difference.

In practice, this collaboration across our different business functions means a smoother, safer repair for our customer.

Say for instance we are carrying out a repair in a customer’s home which requires us to lift the flooring. By asking if we would benefit from having an ELO involved from the outset, we guarantee we identify any known vulnerabilities or additional considerations needed to correctly support our customer.

Our ELO colleague is able to consider what additional steps might be needed to be put in place, schedule any follow-on works to minimise the disruption and timeframes for our customer, and provide better clarity to our customer.

None of this is groundbreaking. It is about creating the environment and processes where our colleagues are handling the part of the repair or customer journey which best suits the skillset they have.

Most of it comes from simply taking that step back and challenge how we’ve always done things, and crucially, putting ourselves in our customers’ shoes.

We know from our own experience and from the Housing Ombudsman, rarely are failings in the sector around vulnerability the result of malice – too often it is down to complacency.

Tweaking these processes and behaviours, however small, can make a significant difference to both our colleagues and our customers, particularly those who are most vulnerable.

For our maintenance teams, it may only be one of a number of repairs tasks we complete in a given day, but for our customers these repairs signify a major disruption in their lives and affect their livelihoods. It’s essential we get them right.