In order to deliver on the Great Communities aspect of our vision, it’s essential that our customers are involved in shaping our services. We take time to listen to them so that we can understand their wide-ranging needs and circumstances.
The recent work we’ve done through our Integration Programme has strengthened our offer by ensuring we’re set up in the right way to deliver excellent services to customers. We’ve brought our contact centres together and are investing heavily in our improved digital offer.
Over the past year our Customer Experience Team members have continued to build on some of the great work they’re doing to raise standards, manage expectations and enhance our customer services, no matter how and when customers decide to contact us.
In 2021 we launched our new three-year Customer Experience Strategy, aimed at improving our offer and services to our customers. This year we focused on embedding a customer-focused culture, developing and implementing new technology and improving our approach to customer communications, alongside implementing a new service delivery model for the customer Hub. Specifically, we:
At the end of March 2022 our overall satisfaction score was sitting at 7.0 out of 10.
This figure is calculated using the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) methodology. The Institute of Customer Service (ICS) is an independent, professional membership body which works across different sectors including retail, utilities, banks, building societies and transport. Membership gives us a unique insight into the quality of customer service across the UK.
The official ‘One Business’ launch on 4 April brought together the expertise and passion of the former Equity Customer Solutions team and Great Places Hub colleagues to form a single customer contact centre.
This was the culmination of many months of planning and hard work, as we invested in the team to help us deliver even better customer services. Much of this effort was focused on preparing for the launch of our new housing management system, Aareon, but we also went live with a single phone number and one general enquiries email address for all customers, no matter where they live.
The work on integration for the contact centre also included enhancing the wrap-around service model within the Hub, provided by specialists, to align their work with the rest of the business and ensure first-point-of-contact resolution around issues including ASB, rent, repairs and allocations functions.
At the same time we launched a new and more efficient IVR (interactive voice response) telephony system. Before we went live with this we consulted with customers to ensure they were happy with the suggested changes, and confident that it would improve our offer.
Click here to view a recent feature in My Great Place magazine discussing the service improvements.
The One Business go-live preparation ensured readiness for launch of a brand new suite of mobile and digital products for Great Places customers, including an updated customer portal called MyPlace.
MyPlace builds on our previous portal offer and allows customers to self-serve to a greater degree, enabling them to stay up to date with all things regarding their tenancy and carry out key tasks at a time and place that suits them.
Our new portal gives customers access to their account via their phone, tablet or computer so they can get the information they need and manage frequently used services on the go – like checking rent balances, reporting repairs, reviewing transactions, requesting a refund, accessing specific contact details and linking to Allpay.
Over the coming months we will be encouraging more customers to access MyPlace as part of our digital channel shift campaign, which aims to encourage more people to interact with us via our digital platforms as we continuously improve our offer.
Our digital strategy is focused around how we can address the increasing need of our customers to access information, services and support 24/7, especially when they want it.
During the pandemic we saw a shift in our customer behaviour, with more of them wanting to use digital channels, at a time that is convenient. We’ve been exploring how we can help our customers self serve and access the valuable information they need without the need to phone into our customer Hub or speak to us directly; and with that in mind, in February 2021 we launched Chatabot, our digital assistant.
Since its launch we’ve seen:
We’re seeing customers frequently asking questions about repairs, renting a property and rent arrears. And conversations over Live Chat have gone down over the past 12 months, suggesting that our customers are getting the answers they need simply by talking to Chatabot.
Chatabot is only one part of our digital journey. There’s lots that our customers can look forward to, from creating connected communities to providing support to bridge the digital divide with our non-digital customers. We’re also innovating by installing digital noticeboards in some schemes and the creation of access to technology hubs in our anchor neighbourhoods. Later in 2022 we aim to implement an online digital engagement platform for customers to widen our reach and areas of involvement.
Our customers play an essential role in helping us improve the services we provide.
By providing feedback, customers help to transform our services and the experience they have with us. Listening to our customers and understanding what matters to them helps us to improve our services and create better places to live.
Over the past 12 months our key customer engagement initiatives have captured the voice of the customers and informed service design and change. These have included engagement in:
In May 2021 we introduced a new Customer Feedback policy, following customer and colleague consultation.
This was as a result of customer feedback that Great Places needed a new approach to make giving feedback more accessible. It also needed to ensure we met the requirements of the then new Housing Ombudsman code, which can be found on our website.
We will continue to strive to provide an effective complaint handling process that puts the customer at the centre. We are also committed to learning and improving our services where we are not getting it right for our customers.
Headline Customer Feedback statistics from April 2021 to 31 March 2022 are shown below.
