Posted on 24 February 2025
Housing associations need to evolve into true service organisations. By listening to our customers and by being easier to deal with, we can deliver better, joined-up services, says Hyde Chief Operating Officer, Neal Ackcral.
At Hyde, we’ve carried out a fundamental review of how we organise our customer-facing colleagues over the past couple of years, in direct response to customer feedback and have restructured our operational teams, to give us a more joined-up and customer-focused approach.
We brought more of our repairs services in-house; over 90% of repairs are carried out by Hyde colleagues, in Hyde vans. And we also introduced a new neighbourhood operating model, to focus on local issues and to be more visible. Today, about three quarters of Hyde colleagues are in roles directly serving our customers, and we’ve doubled the amount of time we spend in our communities.
To support this new approach, we opened our Customer Services Centre in January 2024, bringing all our customer services officers (CSOs) under one roof. Crucially we did this with improved computer systems which allowed us to transact and deal with over 80% of the enquires received whilst on a call with our customers.
We handle between five and six thousand calls each week. This is around half the number of weekly calls we received 12 months ago. Previously, unless it was a simple request, CSOs would pass customers onto different departments. This was frustrating for customers, as it made difficult situations worse, but also frustrating for our CSOs, who want to be able to solve customers’ requests as quickly and effectively as possible.
Customers told us they wanted whoever they spoke with to be accountable and to take action – this, they said, was more important that speed alone. We asked ourselves: could we do both? Could we resolve issues swiftly and personally?
What needed to change
We realised that at least eight out of ten enquiries could be solved in one phone call, if we had the right tools, and the right expertise. That’s why we brought all the CSOs together in one place, trained them to deal with a wider range of enquiries and gave them to tools to solve customers’ issues.
Our CSOs can now schedule repairs, arrange risk assessments for antisocial behaviour, and start the process of getting someone urgent financial support from our Helping Hand fund. In September 2024, for example, CSOs facilitated more than £1,250 of essential goods for customers in need, such as bedding and mattresses.
These changes have also freed up our specialist teams, who are now dealing with fewer, but more complex, cases, and our customer services team can answer the majority of calls in under 50 seconds.
Developing systems and tools
These changes have gone hand-in-hand with a major upgrade of our systems. We’ve moved from a standard housing management system, to a customer relationship management (CRM) system, which has enabled us to create a comprehensive view of each customer. CSOs now have instant access to detailed customer information, from their payment history, to outstanding repairs, which means we can respond more effectively.
Everything we’re doing has been reflected in the improvements we’ve made to our online customer portal MyAccount. Customers can see all their information in one place, so they can do almost everything themselves, without having to call us.
We specifically designed it with three key objectives of being, quick, smart and efficient. For example, customers can book repairs, choosing an appointment date and time to suit them, which then appears automatically in an operative’s diary with repair diagnostics via a dynamic scheduler. Customers can also raise and track complaints and check their rent and service charge balances. They can also have a live chat with a CSO. In October 2024, 100% of customers using the service were satisfied with it.
The customer service improvement journey continues
We know that we’re resolving customers issues faster and more efficiently, and that satisfaction is improving. CSOs can offer a level of care that was previously hard to deliver.
And while we’re really pleased with our progress, there’s still a long way to go. We’re continuing to assess and refine how we work to make improvements, both in our systems and in the support we give our colleagues.
Crucially, we’re demonstrating to customers that we’ve listened, we’re taking responsibility and that we’re taking action. It’s encouraging that our customer satisfaction levels are increasing, but it’s much more rewarding to hear that many more of our customers are now telling us that we’re becoming easier to deal with.
Customers have been with us from the start of this journey, and we need them to keep telling us what we’re getting right, and what needs to change. This will be the only way to become truly customer-focused.
This article first appeared in Inside Housing on 19 February 2025.