Company: Connect Housing Location: Providing 3,400 homes across West Yorkshire for lots of different types of households
Connect Housing is a community benefit society dedicated to serving the interests of local communities across West Yorkshire.
With a strong purpose to tackle inequality, they provide over 3,400 homes for diverse households, including families, older people, and students.
They also offer extensive support services for those facing domestic violence, mental health issues, and homelessness.
We interviewed Richard Baggot, Head of Change, Business Intelligence and Communications at Connect Housing
As a social housing provider in West Yorkshire, Connect Housing addresses all issues related to landlord services for tenants, including repairs, anti-social behaviour (ASB), rent payments, and arrears.
They pride themselves on offering more than just landlord services; their commitment extends to providing welfare in the community, including homeless shelters and domestic violence refuges.
Their strong values underpin their operations, focusing on doing the right thing for tenants and providing opportunities that enhance the quality of life for those they serve.
As a forward-thinking organisation, Connect Housing was aware that the manual, spreadsheet-based feedback system they had in place was not only cumbersome but also failed to provide timely insights.
Recognising the need for a more efficient and effective solution, they sought a feedback platform that could deliver valuable results swiftly.
The primary challenges were centred around improving the collection of feedback, reducing the time taken to analyse results, and ensuring that the insights gained could be effectively acted upon.
Key considerations in their decision-making process included cost, ease of use, and the ability to generate actionable insights that could drive meaningful changes within the organisation.
CustomerSure emerged as the ideal partner, offering a solution that fully met Connect Housing’s requirements at a competitive price point. Prior to this partnership, they lacked a structured feedback solution, making the transition to CustomerSure all the more impactful.
CustomerSure is a supportive, flexible organisation with a great tool that gives real-time, actionable results. The solution is very flexible, and the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
The implementation process was smoother than anticipated, with any delays stemming from internal factors rather than the platform itself.
CustomerSure’s real-time performance reporting has proven invaluable, equipping Connect Housing with the ability to gather and analyse feedback swiftly.
Connect Housing uses CustomerSure to obtain Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM), tracking them by tenant type, neighbourhood, and demographics over time.
This capability has been instrumental in enhancing their understanding of tenant needs and improving service delivery. Also providing the ability to benchmark TSM scores against other housing associations. The flexibility of the CustomerSure platform has allowed Connect Housing to tailor the solution to their needs, fostering a responsive approach to feedback collection. Looking ahead, they are eager to explore further integration possibilities, such as fully automated surveys and enhanced reporting capabilities.
Since adopting CustomerSure, Connect Housing has experienced a significant uptick in engagement with customer satisfaction metrics.
The volume of feedback received has increased dramatically, providing greater confidence in their results. Previously receiving fewer than 100 responses per month, the organisation is now able to glean actionable insights from a broader dataset.
Notably, Net Promoter Score (NPS) performance has shown a positive trend over the period of use, even amidst external challenges such as COVID-19 and the rising cost of living.
While Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores have shown some volatility, the insights gained have been overwhelmingly positive, affirming the value of the feedback loop established with customers.
Connect Housing advocates for organisations considering a feedback initiative to embrace the process wholeheartedly.
They believe in the importance of being open to all feedback, whether positive or negative, and understanding that genuine comments from customers can lead to transformative insights.
CustomerSure has proven to be a supportive and flexible partner, offering a robust tool that delivers real-time, meaningful results.
The more effort invested in the feedback process, the greater the rewards. In a landscape where understanding customer needs is vital, having the right partner can significantly enhance an organisation’s ability to listen, learn, and evolve.
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