2 minute read
Customer 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
felt the Minister was genuine and really did want to know her opinion. They didn’t agree on everything, but she felt listened to.
Since April 2018 we’ve been reviewinghow we engage with our customers toget meaningful feedback to improve theservices we provide.
In the past we’ve had several panels thatmet on a regular basis to discuss certaintopics, for example to be consulted onvarious changes we were proposing ornew services we were introducing. Thisworked well for a long time, but wewant to introduce new ways of involvingcustomers including digitally and out in theCommunity, to ensure we reach a wideraudience.
You may have noticed your NeighbourhoodOfficer out and about more, this is becausewe have reduced their patch sizes to allowthem to spend less time in the officeand more time on the ground talking tocustomers and addressing issues at source.
You may also have noticed or been involved with Community Events in your Neighbourhood. We plan to do more of these and want to hear your ideas about what you would like to see and what you and your neighbours would like support with. We still carry out a programme of Neighbourhood Inspections every year and you are welcome to join us for those.
We’re looking for Neighbourhood Champions across all our areas to be a point of contact for the Neighbourhood Officer, but also to assist Neighbours if you have particular skills that you’re able to share. For example, if you’re a keen gardener but your neighbour struggles with this, you may offer to cut their grass. In return your neighbour may offer skills they have, such as painting and decorating or help with transport to the Doctors or to the shops if you don’t drive or find accessing public transport difficult.
If you’re on Social Media, you’ll see a lot more of our staff doing live Question and Answer sessions on Facebook. We welcome your input into these and would like to have a pool of ‘virtual voices’ that regularly feeds back to us digitally, through our website or via Facebook and Twitter.
We’ll be holding ideas forums and focus groups to look at our Policies and Procedures and to consult on various topics and would welcome your participation in these.
Finally, we are looking to introduce a customer training Academy to inform customers about social housing and the services that Rooftop provides. The aim of this is to give customers confidence to feedback, challenge and help shape our services. We’re currently exploring this and will be inviting customers to have an input into the subjects we cover and how we deliver the sessions.
To get involved or if you would like more information on any of the things outlined here please do not hesitate to get in touch.
YOU CAN YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
WE WILL SUPPORT YOU!
To express an interest or give suggestions please email: CE@ROOFTOPGROUP.ORG
