Focus on resident engagement
Six critical areas for housing providers to consider to strengthen customer engagement and create meaningful change
INNOVATION & IMPROVEMENT
Image: Istock
Catherine Little
Director, Campbell Tickell
Jon Slade
Director, Campbell Tickell
Issue 68 | October 2023
Hearing customer voices is a crucial issue for the housing sector. Grenfell and Rochdale are high profile examples of truly tragic service outcomes, both with a narrative of residents being unheard. A renewed regulatory emphasis on the quality of homes, services and customer experience has underscored the importance of active engagement with residents. Put this together with the pressing need to address challenges such as net zero and building safety, the case for high quality, diverse and meaningful resident engagement has never been stronger.
Social housing can be a somewhat insular world, but questions about how best to engage customers and turn their views into actionable insights are universal. In our recent joint report with Disruptive Innovators Network, Customer engagement – fresh perspectives, we explored what has worked in customer insight and engagement for organisations across a range of sectors.
The research clearly demonstrates six critical areas for housing providers to consider. It’s entirely likely that different organisations will find different answers to the questions posed, but we think they are important discussions for housing providers and residents to have.
01
From insight to action
The case studies point to the power of data to improve an organisation’s understanding of, and engagement with, their customers. But collecting data for the sake of it is not enough. Organisations need to improve how they exploit the huge data sets they already have and to define, collect, analyse and apply learning from new data.
- How is the importance of data reflected in your organisation’s structures and working practices?
- Are you clear about the expected outcomes of better data?
- What part does data play in your customer engagement strategy?
02
Engagement for change
Historically social housing organisations have tended to focus on fixed engagement infrastructure (resident associations, panels etc.) and passed change initiatives through these structures. Our case studies show the importance of resident engagement that is focused on change. Engaging with an objective in mind means you can seek out people who have recent relevant experience. That, in turn, leads to meaningful engagement that can really make a difference.
- How can you engage with a representative cross section of customers with recent relevant experience of the service you are seeking to change?
- Where successful involvement structures are in place, what role could this play in overseeing broader and dynamic engagement?
03
Representation matters
The more representative the views you obtain, the more powerful the messages carried by those views. That doesn’t mean sidelining people who have volunteered their time over years, but it does mean welcoming new voices in a way that suits them, as well as valuing experience.
- How do you define how you will hear customer voices, and are you clear about the voices you are not hearing (‘find your silence’)?
- How are you working with residents to make engagement more accessible?
04
Values in practice
A little empathy goes a long way and that needs to start with valuing customers. Our case studies remark that this culture is not fully embedded within the sector and that there is work to be done to increase the impact of residents’ experiences on service development.
- How well does the reality of your customer service match the intent of your values?
- How do you know?
05
Make it meaningful in everyday life
A thread about making engagement tangible runs through the case studies. Centrally imposed targets or measures can feel distant and less meaningful than shared ambitions for making a difference in people’s homes, lives and communities.
- Does everyone, from residents to the Board room, understand the links between customers’ day-to-day experiences and high-level performance measures such as the TSMs?
- Are you cutting and dicing performance metrics for different groups of residents (e.g. based on geographic area, property type or protected characteristic)? What lessons do you learn and who are you not hearing from?
06
So what?
Better engagement can lead to better outcomes for organisations. It is crucial that engagement methodologies describe how impact will be specified at the outset, enacted and evaluated at the end of the engagement. This is about understanding the impact of engagement and how this can create a virtuous cycle of improved services and ongoing energy from involved residents.
- What difference does resident engagement make?
- How are you demonstrating this to residents?
This article first appeared in Campbell Tickell's joint report with Disruptive Innovators Network: Customer engagement – fresh perspectives
