Supporting our Customers
Equality Scheme 2018-2022 OBJECTIVE 5: Support our customers to ensure equality outcomes in times of change • Understand our customers and their needs and adapt our services to meet those needs • Provide training and support for our customers in relation to digital • Tackle the matters that are important to our customers such as social isolation and fuel poverty
During 2019/20 we continued to: • Progress our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Implementation Project, which will enable us to increase the profile information we hold about our customers to include items such as communication preference to enable us to shape services to meet their needs effectively; • Support residents through the ongoing changes to the welfare benefits system; • Deliver our Warm in Winter programme, our older persons winter warmth and safety programme that identifies and addresses loneliness and helps safeguard residents from scams; • Work to support the local communities in which Swan operates by developing employment opportunities within Swan and offering training and guidance for accessing these roles; and • Provide our customers with hate crime training opportunities.
Supporting residents through the ongoing changes to the welfare benefits system We have three Welfare Reform Officers who continue to support general needs residents through the changes. Our knowledge and understanding of customers and their needs has been enhanced by the appointment of these officers. The London Welfare Reform Officer speaks both English and Bengali which supports our resident profile in London. We have provided and will continue to provide, targeted information and individualised support for residents affected by welfare reform with a focus on personal contact and we understand that our residents have different needs. In 2019/20 rent arrears were only 1.96%. In 2019/20 the team helped residents to reduce their debt and met arrears targets by: 22
