Supporting our customers

• Customer Voice influenced and directed our coronavirus communications and online content, to ensure we provided information that was helpful and easy-to-understand
• Our Resident Inspection team recommended 15 service improvements to our complaints service, grounds maintenance, cleaning services and estate services
• Customers helped us to select contractors and design the services for planned maintenance, internal lifts and hoists, and parking
• Two customers were recruited to our complaints board and took part in the review of the process and lessons learned.

Services returned to normal by the summer of 2020 and throughout the year. This included essential maintenance and repairs, property management and estate services, dealing with anti-social behaviour and  providing more support to those who needed it most. Overall satisfaction with customer services rose to 84% (2019/20: 83%), despite the unprecedented situation.

We completed 1,432 lets, one of our busiest years (2019/20: 1,312). Average empty home turnaround was 22.9 days, against a target of 25 days. We also facilitated 259 mutual exchanges in 2020/21 (2019/20: 281) when many social landlords weren’t allowing them to go ahead due to the pandemic. Customer satisfaction with lettings was 90% (2019/20: 95%).

Our new complaint policy and procedure responds to the findings of a Resident Inspection team review of complaints and the Housing Ombudsman’s new Complaint Handling Code. Customers can use an informal or a formal process, with a 10 working day response target. Satisfaction with complaints handling was 55% against our ambition of 65%.

We worked closely with Customer Voice and our Homeowner Panel as we work towards meeting customer expectations around service charges, improving accuracy, transparency and value for money. We’ve improved proactive contact with customers and taken steps to reduce common errors, and we’ve had positive feedback from those customers who’ve had complex enquiries resolved.

We continued to embed the ‘I am Hyde’ tone of voice, to make it part of our business as usual activities. This is the most important tool we have to influence customer engagement and satisfaction. It’s making a difference: customers have praised our empathy in our regular updates on the coronavirus pandemic and we achieved our highest-ever open rates for mailings, of more than 60%.

Our Digital programme aims to transform our customers’ experience, empowering them to manage their homes effectively, as well as making us more efficient. Eventually, we expect about 75% of our services will be delivered through digital platforms. There are three main workstreams:

• Salesforce: a customer relationship management system enabling customers to manage their homes online. Salesforce will also help us to support customers more effectively as it will give us ‘one view’ of every customer
• TotalMobile Connect: a system bringing all our property data in one place, so we can efficiently manage repairs, maintenance and compliance. We’ll make better decisions and deliver the best value for money
• Data and integration: We’ll hold one true version of all our data in a cloud-based system, so we can link data between each of our different systems.

Hyde Foundation prevents homelessness and works with communities and partners to create great places where people want to live. In 2020/21 it:

• Made 2,083 interventions preventing evictions and homelessness (2019/20: 1,903)
• Advised 1,552 customers on financial matters (2019/20: 1,291)
• Secured more than £3.5m towards rent payments (2019/20: £3.0m)
• Helped 104 customers back into work (2019/20: 207)
• Secured commitments of £774k for Hyde Charitable Trust, Hyde Foundation and our community partners, more than double our original target
• Worked with our supply chain to deliver £130k in social value (2019/20: £150k).

Additionally, Hyde Charitable Trust awarded 632 grants worth £1.5m to community programmes (2019/20: 154 grants worth £0.3m).

You can read more about how Hyde Foundation and Hyde Charitable Trust supported people and communities in 2020 in the Hyde Foundation impact report: Bringing our social purpose to life.

The pandemic continues to have a significant effect on customers and communities, with many feeling the physical, mental and financial impacts. Hyde Charitable Trust provided additional financial support throughout the year, including:

• £600k for an emergency relief fund for community and individual grants
• £484k for 277 customers through the rent relief fund to help sustain rent payments; collection rates increased from 83% to 98% after grants were awarded
• £308k in grants to help customers buy food; to help families manage bereavement costs and to supply laptops for home schooling.