C U S TO M E R ENGAGEMENT It’s really important at Rooftop that we listen to our customers and involve them. We are here to provide a service and we want to do it well. The only way to do that is to engage with the people who live in Rooftop homes. We recently invited residents to meet the Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Kit Malthouse. Four of our customers went along to the event in Birmingham that was held at the end of October. The Minister has been attending seminars over the last few months to allow tenants to have their say, specifically on the Social Housing Green Paper. Jeanne Wall and three other Rooftop residents spent the day discussing their experiences. They were put into groups with residents from other Housing Associations, plus civil servants and representatives of the Ombudsman to ensure all questions and answers were dealt with honestly and without coercion. The discussion was mostly about the quality of service landlords provide and how we could be rated. Having ratings for HA’s a bit like Trip Advisor would allow customers to start thinking about which landlords they want to be housed by, as currently tenants choose homes and inherit a landlord.There were also conversations around whether tenants could take responsibility for certain works to the property, giving them choice over their contractors. Jeanne said that after speaking to residents from other Housing Associations she had a new appreciation for Rooftop and she
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felt the Minister was genuine and really did want to know her opinion. They didn’t agree on everything, but she felt listened to.
We’ve got lots of plans at Rooftop to improve customer participation. Since April 2018 we’ve been reviewing how we engage with our customers to get meaningful feedback to improve the services we provide. In the past we’ve had several panels that met on a regular basis to discuss certain topics, for example to be consulted on various changes we were proposing or new services we were introducing. This worked well for a long time, but we want to introduce new ways of involving customers including digitally and out in the Community, to ensure we reach a wider audience. You may have noticed your Neighbourhood Officer out and about more, this is because we have reduced their patch sizes to allow them to spend less time in the office and more time on the ground talking to customers and addressing issues at source.
SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOP
