Mutual Exchange Staff Evaluation Session 04/10/2016 Review of exit survey’s findings - Where did people hear about the event? – social media, newsletter, whilst at the CSC itself. - What were the nature of enquires? – understanding the process, using the system, advertising hints and tips, help with searching - Did we help with the enquiry? - 100% yes - Would customers recommend event to a friend? – 100% yes - Did customers find the event helpful? – 100% yes What went well? - MX activity – Outer West CSC report an increase in enquiries re: MX during September with more phone calls and more applications. The office was motivated to do a clear out on the system of the ‘no man’s land’ MX associated with closed offices that were sat in the system and there has been more conversations and talk about MX in the office amongst colleagues. The East End CSC also report an increase in MX applications during this MX awareness raising process with approximately three times the amount of MX applications over a months period. Social media also generated enquiries, comments, shares and likes from the posts we put on Your Homes Newcastle’s main Facebook page and YHN’s discussion group YHN ChitChat. - Advertising on social media – regular posts, lots of views, shared on Hub pages, well-co-ordinated and repetitive, response from survey that people were seeing it on social media, seeing it on their friend’s page etc. - Staff awareness raising - conversations being had at the CSC between officers, Housing Options staff would now feel confident in arranging their own customer event and hosting another event in the future. - Our offer – we feel that we pitched the event right in terms of what ewe offered to customers. No one came along with unexpected enquiries they were all around what we expected to be the problems that people were having. - One swap (Outer West CSC Event) generated due to event, a swap that wouldn’t have happened otherwise as customer was about to give up and go via transfer route instead, the story has been used to raise awareness for other customers in Homes and People magazine Oct/Nov Edition. Through this swap we have saved YHN cost in terms of void costs as the swappers were going to move via a transfer. - Positive exit survey feedback from customers – we did genuinely help those customers that attended and all customers said they would use the information we had given them to help them get swapped. - Positive feedback for the video and customer guide – useful tool at events, positive first hand feedback from customers. - New Tyne and Wear Homes portal - events coincided well with launch of new Tyne and Wear Homes portal therefore we were able to help customers navigate the new portal as an added unforeseen extra
What didn’t go so well? - Turnout – low numbers at each event, highest attendance Outer West (6) followed by Kenton and the East End (3 each) Walker (1) and lowest attendance West End with zero attendance. - Resources - Due to delays in finalising customer guide we were not able to get these printed as leaflets to be used at the sessions and given out to customers as a resource. We also could have decorated the CSC’s more to make it more eye catching for customers when they came into the CSC that the event was going. What could we do to improve this? - More local advertising – we did some local advertising (Walker Learning Hive, Dog Trust Community Event, Libraries) but we could have done more. Now we have the customer guide in future this could naturally be turned into a printed off leaflet or a poster and handed out at local places such as the local shops, schools, GP surgeries etc. to generate interest and advertise at a relatively low cost. - More local Hub social media advertising – more sharing of central page posts, more routinely throughout month. We could put on a least one post a week about mutual exchange on social media to continually generate awareness. - Feedback ENewsletter- we could produce a newsletter telling customers how the events went, what we helped people with, how this helped people move forward – use info from the exit surveys to give feedback. We could send this out to everyone we invited to the events so they can see what they missed to generate interest for future events and we could put this newsletter on social media for everyone on to see. - Real-time feedback – when an exchange goes through we could ask the customer if we could use their story and put a real time post on the Hubs Facebook page so customers can see straightaway that mutual exchanges are happening. We could do a monthly round up of the swaps that have happened this month at each Hub and really utilise the CSC’S social media pages to gather interest by promoting real stories. - MX Tip of the Month – we could run a series of useful hints and tips to continue to generate awareness. We could do this relatively quickly and easily via social media. - Abritas Advertising – with changes to the system there is now a customer advertising space on the customer side of the system that we could use to advertise future events to generate more awareness and interest. - Resources – we could invest in some decoration e.g. some bunting, a pop up banner to make the events more eye catching. Next events - We would recommend that we do hold another set of events like the events we have done in September. Although turnout was low there was a lot of positives that have come out of the events and we think with some more work around advertising and the natural interest that should be generated in MX due to the transfer embargo people will be more likely to attend events like
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this in the future. It is important that we build to the positives from these customer sessions, take steps to improve and keep the momentum going. January-February 2017 – we would recommend the next set of events to take place in the new year. There is a lot of interest normally seen at this time of year after xmas, a new set of events could be well placed here and see more people attend, the events could be marketed as “new home, new year, new start�.