tonysmiththathousingitguy @HousingITguy

Some thoughts on IT and UK SocialHousing from a unique perspective of over 27+ years working with over 140 RSL's, Councils and social landlord groups in the UK, Ireland & Australia. (c) No reproduction without prior/express permission Available for independent housing RSL implementation, procurement of HMS, Repairs, CRM, EDM, DLO, Financial, Scheduling systems, critical friend etc. In Scotland I work with the folks at Arneil Johnston Check us out on Soundcloud /housingitguy

Showing posts with label ombudsman. Show all posts

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

Processed Complaints

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

Following on from my blogpost last month, focused on how residents can effectively raise issues and complaints effectively, how should Social and Council Housing best effectively resolve/conclude them effectively.

Reaction to my previous post prompted a quite a few residents to share their experiences of complaints with their landlords on Twitter, a few can be accessed here and here.

Complaints and service fails will always happen, that’s life. As I reminded a supplier this last week, ‘nothing in life is ever 100%’, so don’t kid yourself or customers, that you are. When things go wrong, they invariably cost way more to rectify than they might have just to get the issue right in the first place. That’s why complaints should be embraced as a valuable means to improve, rather than buried as dirty embarrassments.

One of the biggest initial issues that residents have with complaints is how their Council or RSL will handle them and how to initiate one. If you are a Social Housing provider, is your defined policy easy to find on your website and can you initiate one from that page? We do tend to do most things from the internet these days, but do we also offer an Omnichannel approach, where residents can phone or walk in too, initiating one?

For example, YourHousing close to me in the North West of England offer good details on online Complaint/compliments (their capitalisation) here.

A refreshingly open approach 😉

I particularly like the Orbit Housing Group open approach on complaints here, which is also quite candid on numbers being received. The data nerd in me however, would like an ‘Other’ section at the bottom of that table, mentioning the missing 18.07%. How many other RSLs would be comfortable sharing their stats on their website? I haven't seen many.

Lets think about those initial complaints coming in then. If a compliant (or complement) can be submitted via a webpage, where does it initially get recorded? Ideally it should become a CRM interaction, possibly at that stage the start/update of a ‘case’ and initiate a workflow task, for a member of staff to action. If that initial request just goes into an email box (or possible spam if colourful or emotional language used), it might take days to progress/respond to, or start dealing with these. Where good quality self-service is available, ability to submit complaints (or related incidents etc including images/video) against a logged in resident, is of great advantage.

Inside your RSL, once successfully recorded or converted from a CRM interaction, how easy does your systems and processes allow easy access to staff who should have access, to have audited view/update of the whole complaint timeline? What residents might call 'their case notes'. This can be easily supported digitally by most well configured modern integrated Housing Management Systems, or a hybrid of HMS and CRM platform such as Microsoft Dynamics365, Salesforce or Netcall. Some competent standalone complaint solutions are available, although the lack of integration and ability to navigate a 360degree view of the resident, can severely blunt its overall effectiveness. Housing finance staff might be struggling to progress arrears, while being totally unaware of a significant complaint in play elsewhere. Better integration, including to document management (EDRMS) recording video, images, WAV files etc, ties everything together. Repairs are generally the biggest issue area and links of a case to offending Works Orders or Capital Works, helps present a high level view.

Once received we would hope that communication will be key, in keeping the complainant informed at all times. A good internal process should set targets for different types of complaints and this should be visible/shared with residents, to know what to expect. This is one area that clearly often falls down, leads to excessive additional requests in from residents and growing stress and frustration. If systems are set up correctly, much of the communication process can be automated via SMS, email, managing the complaint progression via intelligent self-service etc.

Recognise that residents trying hard to find out what is happening to their complaint and seeing very little in responses back, can easily appear vexatious (and unfortunately be sometimes labeled as such).

The good example below is again from Orbit setting resident expectations

Where next will the resident complaint go?

Above, a target of ten days, with updates every few days, puts residents in no doubt what the RSL is aiming to do. However what is to be done internally if staff are not keeping to targets? Most HMS/case management/CRM solutions enable automatic escalation of tasks and diversion, on occasions of annual leave/sickness etc. Often these are not correctly configured or enforced internally, email often being used instead. With the latter, tasks can easily be lost, too many staff cc:d in, often everyone assumes (wrongly) ‘everyone else is dealing with it’. So, switch these features on and let staff know all updates belong on the case, not via email. Case time & costs might well also be collated.

So, assuming the case progresses and the issue gets resolved satisfactorily, how does the RSL learn from the experience? Overall costs to rectify quite often are many times the original cost of getting the issue right in the first place, so its crucial that from each complaint, we analyse, learn and work to tweak wider processes, often with the whole journey in the room, to reduce recurrence.

Sample changes I have seen from working with clients over 20 years around complaints, have been:

Improvements to staff training and experience going forward / mentoring. Building even better relationships with residents improves outcomes for all
Enhancements to initial repairs diagnosis routines and scripting to capture additional information for more complex repairs, reducing costs, minimising follow-up visits
Better communication when repairs span multiple visits, involve pre-inspections, jobs on hold etc
Introduction of before & after photos for repairs, to better monitor operative trade quality, including photos for evidencing no-access carding
Improved presentation of service charges and info on leaseholder billing, introduction of automated module to calculate charges and enhancement of web portal to reduce manual queries and widen transparency
Introduction of targeted estate/scheme inspections/walkabouts based on complaint hotspots for ASB. EG abandoned vehicle/dumping hotspots
Enhancement of specialist and targeted Tenant participation groups, involving residents earlier, to nip specific issues ‘in the bid’ before they become more serious and costly to rectify. Trusting residents to be our remote sensors
Where complaints have initiated change that residents should notice, share it via quarterly newsletters, Facebook pages, twitter or WhatsApp groups. If the RSL has fixed stuff, tell residents, so they know about the changes that are being trialed

At any point in the process, a FOI (Freedom Of Information) request could be made by a complainant OR if the case cannot be amicably resolved, all the details of the case might need to be collated or exported. Where existing solutions may struggle to achieve this, it puts the RSL at a disadvantage. Possibly residents have better access to this information than the landlord, particularly some time after the original incident occurred. An absolute gift for companies that assist residents with Disrepair claims.

Good reporting from the case management system is key. This might include KPIs such as average time taken to resolve, numbers and categories of complaints received, cost to process and cost of exit fix. Outputs must allow cases to be easily monitored by stage, owner, on-time/approaching late/late and current status. Regular automated reminders to staff and management from the solution should be available, to keep cases moving, with easy management insight

I have intentionally covered a lot of ground here, giving some food for thought I would hope for many Social and Council Housing providers. Some clients I have worked with have been using most of these techniques and systems for some time. Others have virtually none, or manage relatively well with manual spreadsheets etc. But that is a rarity.

If your organisation encounters many cases going to local councillors, MPs or the Ombudsman, then clearly there’s a problem. Equally, if complaint cases creates many residents labelled as vexatious or ‘red flagged’ with warnings, it’s more likely that problems lie more with you than your residents. Look again at your internal processes and communication, just small tweaks might make a great deal of difference.

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation with complaint solutions,

please just get in touch, for a friendly chat over a brew & some Hobnobs ☕😋.

Catch the blog monthly archive at
https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.

Kasabian – Processed Beats.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

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Thursday, 16 June 2022

In Disrepair

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

We all remember the PPI miss-selling scandal. The seemingly often daily calls, “You can cash in big – press 'One' now to start your claim…”.

It was irritating and good to see over eighteen months ago for it to finally end and we could return to mobile phone, 'have you had an accident that wasn't your fault' and parcel scams. PPI claims were mostly driven by ‘boiler room operations’ that relied on just a few folk taking up their chances, while irritating everyone else. There is good and bad news to the end of PPI and that the callers are still gainfully employed, except now many of them have moved into Social Housing Disrepair Claims instead.

While as regularly revealed by the excellent Kwajo Tweneboa, there are some terrible repair horror stories out there, not all are down to lack of effort on some landlords.

Unfortunately, this is looking more and more like a happy hunting ground and there is plenty of scope for cashing in and potential big costs for landlords. Of course there would be less profit in this, if repairs were managed better, particularly using many of the technology & ICT means available, I often write about in this blog.

I am talking about well managed internal contractor/DLO teams, better diagnosis and scripting of repairs up front, better (automated & personal) communication, convenient repairs scheduling, mobile control of repairs and satisfaction follow-ups to catch snagging. Nothing here I would regard blue-sky, but how many council housing and socialhousing teams are properly taking advantage of all of this? If they are, how are they managing with self-service good enough to allow residents to be aware of when repair visits are due and help to manage amendments & cancellations?

Getting this right with integrated system solutions would probably eradicate 65% of issues. The remainder is perhaps down to maintaining a high quality of contractor trade work, so ITV TV don’t send a film crew down to one of more of your schemes to see the state of damp or dangerous properties. I would certainly read about less problems direct on my Twitter feed from residents across the UK and wouldn’t be sharing as much practical advice either.

However, whether a repair has been ignored for too long, bodged or just had six or more multiple visits that neither has actually closed it out, are all ripe for the ‘Disrepair Claims Ambulance Chasers’. Sadly so are repairs that perhaps have been closed out well, however with variable communication throughout. All can be caught up in the mix as the boiler rooms target lots of socialhousing residents and more & more turn into complaints and disrepair claims.

If you are not on top of it, others will be...

Over the last two years I have encountered more and more system requirements in procurements around disrepair claims. These involve accounting for an insurance amount for repairs, better case management and CRM tracking progressing to court cases.

In addition, one area often glossed over, the recovery of data (often in other systems) to formulate and manage an evidential timeline for the particular repair being challenged. In a recent project I am involved with, we are carefully examining where granular trade repairs visit data can be added to more ‘header’ type information, to support Disrepair Claims, going forward in a new better integrated data solution. Some legal & GDPR guidance is being fed into how data can be best retained and managed.

Social landlords failing to be able to evidence issues (or non-issues), can expect to be taken to the cleaners by the ambulance chases and in some cases, residents with better data on the repairs issues than them. Also, lets not lose sight of all this data being a means of reducing future issues and driving improvement/transformation. Getting the job done right first time, is good for resident and landlord. Its also more cost effective, something essential and more crucial as inflation starts to nudge up to 1970’s levels, which will almost certainly cause future tightening of repair budgets.

Ignore the Disrepair Ambulance Chasers at your peril.

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation with DLO/repairs, scripting or wider HMS transformation, please just get in touch, for a chat over a brew.

I will bring the Chocolate Hobnobs ☕😉

Catch the blog monthly archive at
https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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Dan Auerbach - Heartbroken, In Disrepair.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here