WHA has always put its customers at the centre of everything it does.
However, when the Government White Paper to improve the quality of social housing expressly spelled out the importance of customers having their voice heard by their landlord – it was time to listen even more closely.
In response, WHA appointed Bernie Hubble as Customer Voice Officer in June 2021. She said: “It was clear that in terms of giving customers a voice there were gaps in WHA – and throughout the sector – that needed filling. It was necessary to up the engagement levels.
“Even without the issue of COVID, our previous central annual engagement event wasn’t working for us anymore. WHA had to step its programme of customer engagement by going out to the community.”
Working with Customer Experience Manager Sarah Whyment and the rest of the team, she launched six engagement events across all WHA settings last year.
“We studied at the seven points in the Charter – to be safe in your home, to know how your landlord is performing, to have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly, to be treated with respect, to have your voice heard by your landlord, to have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in, to be supported to take your first step to ownership –
for inspiration in planning to survey our customers face-to-face.
“We advertised the events with flyers, emails and posters then went door-to-door with the survey and erect a stall in an area with decent footfall during the period. We may bring along our tenants’ scrutiny panel, our home improvement agency and other community services.”
The team found there were lessons to learn from the initial events.
Bernie explained: “We misjudged the timing at a particular location. Between 10am and 2pm we only managed to speak to a quarter of the people we had hoped for, because the residents were mostly out at work. When we went back from 5-7pm we had more success.
“For engagement the key thing is understanding the demographic and doing the research in advance. What works for the retirement schemes does not necessarily work for our areas that have more families, carer leavers and single people.”
“Community mapping” using intelligence from WHA housing officers and its money advice officer gave a more accurate of the customer demographic in each area to inform future scheduling.
“Our new-build Wimborne Close was completed just before the pandemic with the majority earmarked for key workers so there no point in visiting during the day – maybe 5-7pm would be more productive but with the awareness that many of them might be working shifts.”
“We collate the information harvested – get a rack of jobs that are put on HomeMaster and actioned immediately or followed up on with colleagues later. We retain evidence of our engagement in anticipation of audits.
“We take the “You said, we did” approach. At one of our tenant engagement days we discovered there was an issue with flytipping. In response we put on a skip day – and everyone got rid of their rubbish at the same time, bringing the community together and solving their problem in one go. But the message we want to get out is we are here for all our tenants, no matter is too small.”
This year WHA is following the six-event template again but refining it with extra demographic knowledge they have gained.
“We want to engage with more young families,” said Bernie. “So we are planning to host an event in an area where there is a park and a high density of WHA families during the summer holidays and taking along kids’ entertainment, maybe Youth Community Champions and, as per the Charter, ensuring the access to the right information regarding first steps to homeownership.”
At WHA, engagement is part of everyone’s job.
Bernie said: “Every contact we have with a customer counts – at an event, on the phone, in their front room. For example, our maintenance teams have been asked to bring us as the customer voice team in on repairs. Being involved all together, through better communication increases our efficien
We have always put our customers at the centre of everything we do.
However, when the Government White Paper to improve the quality of social housing expressly spelled out the importance of customers having their voice heard by their landlord – it was time to listen even more closely.
In response, we appointed Bernie Hubble as our Customer Voice Officer in June 2021. She said: “It was clear that in terms of giving customers a voice there were gaps in WHA – and throughout the sector – that needed filling. It was necessary to up the engagement levels.
“Even without the issue of COVID, our previous central annual engagement event wasn’t working for us anymore. WHA had to step its programme of customer engagement by going out to the community.”
Working with Customer Experience Manager Sarah Whyment and the rest of our team, she launched six engagement events across all WHA settings last year.
“We studied at the seven points in the Charter – to be safe in your home, to know how your landlord is performing, to have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly, to be treated with respect, to have your voice heard by your landlord, to have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in, to be supported to take your first step to ownership –
for inspiration in planning to survey our customers face-to-face.
“We advertised the events with flyers, emails and posters then went door-to-door with the survey and erect a stall in an area with decent footfall during the period. We may bring along our tenants’ scrutiny panel, our home improvement agency and other community services.”
Our team found there were lessons to learn from the initial events.
Bernie explained: “We misjudged the timing at a particular location. Between 10am and 2pm we only managed to speak to a quarter of the people we had hoped for, because the residents were mostly out at work. When we went back from 5-7pm we had more success.
“For engagement the key thing is understanding the demographic and doing the research in advance. What works for the retirement schemes does not necessarily work for our areas that have more families, carer leavers and single people.”
“Community mapping” using intelligence from WHA housing officers and its money advice officer gave a more accurate of the customer demographic in each area to inform future scheduling.
“Our new-build Wimborne Close was completed just before the pandemic with the majority earmarked for key workers so there no point in visiting during the day – maybe 5-7pm would be more productive but with the awareness that many of them might be working shifts.”
“We collate the information harvested – get a rack of jobs that are put on HomeMaster and actioned immediately or followed up on with colleagues later. We retain evidence of our engagement in anticipation of audits.
“We take the “You said, we did” approach. At one of our tenant engagement days we discovered there was an issue with flytipping. In response we put on a skip day – and everyone got rid of their rubbish at the same time, bringing the community together and solving their problem in one go. But the message we want to get out is we are here for all our tenants, no matter is too small.”
This year we are following the six-event template again but refining it with extra demographic knowledge we have gained.
“We want to engage with more young families,” said Bernie. “So we are planning to host an event in an area where there is a park and a high density of WHA families during the summer holidays and taking along kids’ entertainment, maybe Youth Community Champions and, as per the Charter, ensuring the access to the right information regarding first steps to homeownership.”
At WHA, engagement is part of everyone’s job.
Bernie said: “Every contact we have with a customer counts – at an event, on the phone, in their front room. For example, our maintenance teams have been asked to bring us as the customer voice team in on repairs. Being involved all together, through better communication increases our efficiency and efficacy.”
