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An update from Jen Vinton
Gaapr Ye
Our journey to understand customer service Our Gap Year is all about thinking about where we are now and where we want to be in future and, at the moment, we’re gathering lots of information to help us make improvements further down the line – this is our 100 days of insight.
Customers also had the opportunity to tell us what they think of us through a Big Brother style diary room at the big events and we had some smaller scale events in each of our local housing offices where we asked people to rate our customer service. Some of our customers took the opportunity to work shadow some of our staff, with activities taking place in housing options, tenancy and estate management, sheltered housing, property maintenance, Ostara and NFS. You can read about some of our customers’ experiences in the boxes in this document.
Throughout October we focused on customer service and organised lots of activities with staff and customers to help us better understand how good our customer service is now, and what we might be able to do to improve it. Here you’ll find a round-up of the activities we held and the lessons we learnt. There’s more information available on our intranet so, if you have the chance to look there, I’d advise you to take advantage of that.
Our work with customers - what did we do? We held some events with customers where they were able to come along and meet Tina face to face to ask her any questions they may have and to tell her what they think about our customer service currently.
Ben spent time with housing
options, he said:
“There’s definitely a lot more work involved in the job than I thought and staff have to work on various different system s, I wonder if streamlining them might be an improvement to lessen workload an d make the process quicker for customers?”
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Gaapr Ye What did we find out? Over 200 customers gave us feedback during October and they identified their priorities as: • Improving response times at contact centres • Making sure customers don’t have to chase up repairs • Making sure enquiries are dealt with at first point of contact • Reducing waiting times for face to face appointments in hubs • Encouraging staff to take ownership of problems and to deal with them • Making sure internal systems “talk to each other” • Making applying for a home an easy and quick process • Making sure we have an effective and efficient repairs service • Not having to make a formal complaint every time something goes wrong
Mark spent time with tenancy and estates, he said
“As a tenant, it’s important to know that you guys are working for us and doing the best you can and that really came across.” And Sharon was with him too and she said: “I’d give YHN five stars for customer service based on what I saw – they’re all for the tenants and the estate they manage, they want the estate to be up to scratch so they go out of their way.” page: 2
Sarah worked with the sheltered housing service, she said:
“I’d give the sheltered housing service a four out of five for customer service as I think it’s really good. Sue gets on with everyone and does a lot, more than I would expect any one person to do.”
Our work with staff - what did we do? We held focus groups with over 200 members of front line staff who provided lots of ideas and took part in some fantastic discussions. We also held a drop in event with Tina where more members of staff were able to provide feedback and make suggestions. Lots of members of staff have made suggestions in the focus groups and via the feedback section on our intranet page for the Gap Year. There’s still time for you to make a suggestion if you’d like to and don’t worry if you don’t have access to the intranet pages; please just get in touch with me directly. Some of our senior managers also took part in a “back to the floor” exercise where they spent time with other members of staff who have more customer-facing jobs. This gave them the opportunity to learn more about what that job entails and to see whether there were any areas for improvement that they could suggest. You can read about some of their experiences – including mine! – in the boxes in this document too.
www.yhn.org.uk
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Gaapr Ye What did we find out? Helpfully, it seems like staff think similar things to customers about what we need to do – which is really good and shows we’re on the same page! Throughout October, staff told us that their priorities are: • We need the right staff in the right jobs • We need to review our relationship with customers and our specialist housing management services • Our customer relationship management system needs to be fit for purpose • Staff need the right technology • We need to address the fact that customer experience is affected by wait times in hubs and on the telephone
I spent some time in the enquiry centre, here are my thoughts:
“The advisors were all very polite and they listened to what the customers were telling them – many of the customers went into lots of detail before being able to describe what their query was, but the advisors were both really patient. The staff deal with some very difficult and distressing conversations and it felt like there was a lot of responsibility placed on them as the first point of contact for these calls.”
• Real time feedback will help reduce complaints
What now? So, there’s lots to think about in terms of customer service, but some really good work already happening that we can be very proud of. The next month will be spent thinking about our culture and we’ll update you on that as soon as possible.
There’s more information on our intranet so please do check it out if you get the chance.
John Urwin, head of housing options, spent his time with environmental services. He said:
There seemed to be a natural rapport with the customers they interacted with and a detailed knowledge of each customer due to the frequent visits they have made to the property. There was a clear respect for the customer’s property, from the way they carried out their duties in a tidy and efficient manner, right down to making sure gates were closed behind them etc.“
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Gap Year
Tina Drury, our managing director, went “back to the floor” with the concierge service, she
said:
“The guys I met had obviously taken some time to prepare for my visit and therefore I was able to better understand how the service works, some of the challenges they face and appreciate what day to day tasks they carry out. I was surprised at the range of things they do, particularly the response team who certainly have some unpleasant things to deal with. These guys really do have to deal with some difficult circumstances which I’m not sure is appreciated by the rest of us at YHN.”
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