What's the Measure of a Man?

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

Just about at the closing of 2022, it feels a little for Social Housing, like the closing of 2017. Back then there was fevered preparation and anticipation of GDPR rolling in the following May. The anticipation now is more around the new TSM’s. These are the new Tenant Satisfaction Measures following a consultation earlier in 2022.

From 1st April 2023, all SocialHousing providers will need to start collecting data for tenant satisfaction measures on areas such as repairs, safety checks and complaints. Will the April 1st deadline make fools of many housing providers or will it all be ok? After all, most providers already would be expected to collate satisfaction feedback on initial proposed themes of repair, building safety and complaint handling. Goodness knows that many, particularly bigger ones in the sector need to be taking satisfaction seriously and acting on it constantly.

TSMs will be used alongside other tools to further scrutinise landlords, interactions (like repairs, gas servicing, compliance and dealing with ASB & complaints) with all their residents. Rather than a rod to beat landlords, I believe it may at last give an opportunity for all, particularly larger ones, to learn from issues. 

After fairly extensive consultation the basic five themes have expanded now into 22 new measures, around five main themes, repairs, building safety, effective complaint-handling, respectful and helpful tenant engagement, and responsible neighbourhood management. These will be drawn from tenant surveys and landlord data (such as for the Decent Homes Standard).

There is a key split between Landlords of up to 1,000 homes and 1,000 and over. The latter have to supply stats annually, where smaller landlords can spread responses over up to two years. Also, bigger providers are allowed to sample survey and extrapolate. Surveys can be fulfilled by post, by phone, face to face or online, to meet resident needs. Demographics of people surveyed, must be very similar to those housed.

Importantly, when they publish their tenant satisfaction measures results, landlords will also have to report how they carried out their tenant perception survey, including how many responses they had and any other issues that may affect the results. An atmosphere of openness is crucial.

All of the current background to the TSMs can be found on the Housing Regulators page here

 

A guide for tenants has also been created for the Regulator For Social Housing. In its 32pt font, I find the guide less of an ‘Easy Read’ and perhaps too ‘dumbed down’ personally. I accept it must have been done in good faith, well meaning to meet established standards to reach all tenants.

 

While I am all for cutting out the jargon, social housing tenants are not stupid in my experience and should never in my opinion be treated as such. Access the guide here

Here to help set the scene, are the raw TSMs :-

  Overall satisfaction

1. Overall satisfaction with the service provided by the landlord. Measured by: tenant perception survey

  Keeping properties in good repair

2. Satisfaction with repairs. Measured by: tenant perception survey
3. Satisfaction with time taken to complete most recent repair. Measured by: tenant perception survey
4. Satisfaction that the home is well-maintained. Measured by: tenant perception survey
5. Homes that do not meet the Decent Homes Standard. Measured by: landlords’ management information
6. Repairs completed within target timescale. Measured by: landlords’ management information

  Maintaining building safety

7. Satisfaction that the home is safe. Measured by: tenant perception survey

  Safety checks

8. Gas safety checks. Measured by: landlords’ management information
9. Fire safety checks. Measured by: landlords’ management information
10. Asbestos safety checks. Measured by: landlords’ management information
11. Water safety checks. Measured by: landlords’ management information
12. Lift safety checks. Measured by: landlords’ management information

  Respectful and helpful engagement

13. Satisfaction that the landlord listens to tenant views and acts upon them. Measured by: tenant perception survey
14. Satisfaction that the landlord keeps tenants informed about things that matter to them. Measured by: tenant perception survey
15. Agreement that the landlord treats tenants fairly and with respect. Measured by: tenant perception survey

  Effective handling of complaints

16. Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling of complaints. Measured by: tenant perception survey
17. Complaints relative to the size of the landlord. Measured by: landlords’ management information
18. Complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales. Measured by: landlords’ management information

  Responsible neighbourhood management

19. Satisfaction that the landlord keeps communal areas clean and well-maintained. Measured by: tenant perception survey
20. Satisfaction that the landlord makes a positive contribution to neighbourhoods. Measured by: tenant perception survey
21. Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling anti-social behaviour. Measured by: tenant perception survey
22. Anti-social behaviour cases relative to the size of the landlord. Measured by: landlords’ management information

IMHO, most providers with recent and well integrated Housing Management Solutions, should have little difficulty meeting the challenge of collating and managing this data. This presupposes ASB case  and Asset management, including Decent Homes reporting is already in place. Most package solutions allow the facility to issue satisfaction surveys, campaigns etc, either in bulk, randomly or on demand, sometimes utilising workflow. This may not be a module/features already in use, but could easily be purchased/implemented before April 2023.

In-built self-service features are very useful where satisfaction surveys can be quickly issued, responded to by existing self-service users. Landlords should check these are available, lobby suppliers for them, or make them available. Clearly good take-up is key for tenants who can and are willing to interact on-line. For those who can’t or wont, an omni-channel approach is essential.

Joined up thinking and integrated systems these days can also be well achieved using an umbrella CRM, such as Microsoft Dynamics D365, Netcall, Salesforce or others. In particular, these CRMs often have features easy to implement or enable, at additional minimal cost. One example is the Microsoft Customer Voice (MSCV), in Microsoft Dynamics 365, essentially Forms Pro with some Go-Faster stripes. This approach keeps garnering satisfaction data within the ‘curtilage’ of existing integration, so everything can be managed together.

Applications that have capabilities to ‘bolt into’ existing integrated solutions and databases, would be my next consideration. There is great automation out there from the likes of Voicescape and others, which can allow use of Cloud data received and tie up with core contact and asset repairs data.

Last on my recommendations are totally isolated solutions that have just cropped up to solve this particular new social housing requirement. This always happens, it did with ASB, complaints and Decent Homes before, although you should expect anything these days to be all in the Cloud. Two things to consider on this, are integration prospects and how flexible the solution was based on its original source.

For integration, don’t get wrapped up in the ‘deer park rutting’ of struggling to integrate. Make integration part of the sale, or a guarantee to integrate with a contract penalty. That often seperates the men from the boys, or the women from the girls. Secondly, ensure if any new solution is already in use (& it might not be!) and live, compare carefully that site with yours. Consider the practicalities and the gaps between what you need and what’s available. There is also safety in numbers, remember its less painful to come in later, after pioneers have worked hard and frustratingly, with all the arrows in their backs!

As with any systems or applications, be sure to ask the right questions and not be comprehensively fooled. If in doubt, ask someone, a Critical Friend or similar, to ask those questions confidently on your behalf.

Happy New Year, lets hope for a better one, and get yourself prepared for those TSM’s
 

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

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

       Related Post: Why does SocialHousing fail so bad with repairs? 

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.

DeWolff - What's the Measure of a Man.
(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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. . . . . . . . . . . .

I’m Not Satisfied

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


Spookily, in the last day or so, I got caught up in a Twitter thread, mainly involving residents, about satisfaction statistics.

Can they be believed, are they always fudged or massaged? If so, surely to the benefit of landlords and housing associations. That seemed to be the common belief, when from what I tend to come across in real life, introducing systems to collect such data, that is not generally the case.

We are in a world currently where we seem to be over-surveyed.

Every time I do a supermarket shop, the bottom of my till receipt urges me to go on line, tell us how we did and have a one-in-ten thousand chance of winning a £200 voucher, to do yet more shopping.

We all make choices via TripAdvisor don’t we?

On eBay and AirB&B, we rate each other. Sometimes its crucial, otherwise we have no accumulated trust or kudos and cannot easily make that sale or purchase. In many cases though, it’s not mandatory and we see no value in it, except maybe to complain.

In socialhousing, its mandatory or accepted that landlords should make attempts to collect satisfaction feedback, but not actually for residents to engage and provide it. This can be improved where reward schemes are in use, but the first step I find with certain landlords, is understanding the benefits of seeing decent quantities of satisfaction and dissatisfaction feedback. Certain landlords, such as HomesInSedgemoor, have shaped the whole repairs service around a lot of that feedback. They now mainly do as many repairs as practical, same day, at no increased cost.

So, why do residents think that the exercise does not take place, or the published figures (and they should be in annual reports or the like), do not seem to reflect reality?

Firstly, some thoughts on how satisfaction should be collected, is needed. The residents opinion, not the contractors is needed. Contractors should not be allowed or encouraged to ‘mark their own homework’. Pushing a reply paid satisfaction card through, or dropping one off, after the work is a fairly passive & expensive way of soliciting feedback. These days if the resident self-serves online, they could receive an email straight after the job completion is updated, with a direct link to a survey for that job. There it can be simply rated & a complaint or a complement raised.

For non-self servers, a scheduled automatic text or call, just requiring a simple key press (for satisfied or not), cheaply can do the job.

For landlords, reducing reliance on manual procedures, Excel spreadsheets, or five bar gates & the like, and integrating satisfaction to real tasks (repair and others), logged in an integrated system is key. This allows reports to be drawn right out of the system, providing a single version of the truth, (no sugar, butter & milk, those ingredients of fudge required). There are plenty of systems I see and help RSLs choose & implement, well capable of this.

Often landlords waste so much time chasing & collating satisfaction figures, they never have opportunity or resource to examine for insights. With ICT systems doing the easy legwork, the insights can be garnered in conjunction with residents, to better understand and improve service. I sometimes laugh when the odd landlord says there is no budget to spend on that. The sad truth is that if service (repairs or otherwise) is improved, it saves money, as we get it right, first time around. That can only lead to higher satisfaction, so a virtuous circle, as they say!

If you are grappling with poor systems for collating satisfaction data, feel free to get in touch!

If you are considering self-service, see you in October, at a new special conference

Related Post: Your software suppliers may be more charitable, than you think! 

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

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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.

The Fall - I’m Not Satisfied.
(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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