We need to be more honest
Housing organisations must ask themselves tough questions around how well they are really serving their customers
We need to be more honest
Housing organisations must ask themselves tough questions around how well they are really serving their customers
“The level of inefficiency and service failure we have in housing is inexcusable.” That’s the unflinching assessment of the sector given by Naomi Sweeting, director of customer experience at Grand Union Housing Group.
Sweeting, who took her first job in housing six years ago having previously worked in the commercial sector, thinks that service failure is in part a result of housing associations not operating in a truly competitive market. “Our customers don’t have a choice,” she elaborates. “Therefore, there’s been no consequence when we’ve got it wrong.”
Detailed customer needs
But even more important than that uncomfortable truth is the fact that landlords tend not to know who their customers are at a granular level. To address this problem, in late 2021 Sweeting led a psychographic customer segmentation exercise for Grand Union. This involved an email and telephone survey of more than 2,500 Grand Union customers containing 50 statements and questions.
The idea behind the work was not to characterise its customers or group them into different generic ‘types’, but rather to identify common themes while also understanding the different capabilities and needs of tenants. Similarly, the impetus that drove the study was not to generate data for its own sake but to build services that better matched those customer needs.
Sweeting explains how she was prompted to take this approach because of a suspicion that a higher-than-average proportion of housing association tenants may be experiencing challenges from undiagnosed physical, mental or cognitive conditions – a suspicion borne out by the research, which found that 72% of Grand Union customers experience at least one condition that affects them daily.
Improved services
This deeper understanding can then be translated into how the landlord designs its services. Sweeting uses customer access non-compliance as an example to illustrate her point: “We write to customers about everything in quite long and verbose language and we get lots of what we consider service failure, but we blame the customers for it.
“[But] why aren’t they responding? Well maybe it’s because our services don’t actually meet their needs. Maybe if we’ve got customers who have high levels of difficulty in certain areas, then maybe our processes are wrong, and maybe it’s not a customer issue. That’s what prompted me to do this and that’s what the segmentation has evidenced
This isn’t about a trend to develop ‘personas’ which typically focus on demographic attributes or describe a behaviour that has or hasn’t happened, it’s about understanding why and how we need to design services differently.
Sweeting believes that the segment analysis she has done with Grand Union – and since replicated with five other associations – has inherent value whatever problems you are looking to solve. As she puts it: “A good segmentation is really just rich, granular-level data to feed into your transformation.”
Grand Union customer segmentation exercise – in numbers
2,500
Grand Union customers took part in a psychographic customer segmentation exercise in 2021
50
statements and questions included in the exercise
72%
of customers have at least one condition, that affects them daily according to the research
Naomi Sweeting
Director of Customer Experience, Grand Union Housing Group
“We are moving from a position where we may come across as lacking empathy in communication ‘you are in arrears’ to one that considers our customers needs and builds trust ‘we’ve noticed you have missed a payment, are you ok?'”
Customer segments
Sweeting and her team developed six ‘customer segments’ – ‘deliver’, ‘flex’, ‘boost’, ‘reassure’, ‘assist’, and ‘nurture’ The names reflect the approach that we need to take to meet the needs of these different customer groups.
And although the segmentation will be used to inform how Grand Union operates at an overarching strategic level, there are already services which are being changed as a result of the insights gleaned from the exercise.
Sweeting gives the example of how the association is engaging with customers facing the prospect of falling into arrears. “We’re using it to look at customers joining the organisation and what they need,” she explains. “We’ve put in a clearer referral process because the way we were structured [before] didn’t enable us to identify early enough when customers may have been at risk of falling into arrears, before it happened. Our new approach enables us to support customers earlier, rather than trying to help them once the issue has materialised. This is better for them, and better for us.
Now, we have the ability to identify customers at risk of falling into arrears and refer them to our financial wellbeing team so they can access support if they need it. Grand Union is also working with Voicescape to develop bespoke messages for those in arrears. “We are moving from a position where we may come across as lacking empathy in communication ‘you are in arrears’ to one that considers our customers needs and builds trust ‘we’ve noticed you have missed a payment, are you ok?'” says Sweeting, describing the change in approach.
Need for honesty
Sweeting believes the housing sector needs to be more honest with itself when judging how it is serving its customers. She does not think the newly introduced Tenant Satisfaction Measure (TSM) surveys will yield positive results unless organisations really understand who their customers are and how to ensure the silent voices are included.
“There is a lot of debate about digital data collection giving a negative bias. Actually our segmentation and evidence flips this and shows that a telephone approach actually creates a strong positive bias, by only reaching the most capable and confident customers. Organisations need to consider what the purpose of the new TSM is – and that is to give you the true read on how all your customers are experiencing your service. It’s about informing improvement, not having the top scores if that isn’t the truth.”
“Organisations need to consider what the purpose of the new TSM is – and that is to give you the true read on how all your customers are experiencing your service.”
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