Customer influence policy

The aim of the focus groups were to consider some of the following:

1. What decisions you feel you should be involved in?
2. How we make your voice heard by our Board?
3. What barriers stop customers from getting involved?

Here are a few things that we learnt:      

• Accessibility - It was important that the customer voice is as representative as possible. All groups that took part in the session felt that we should offer quick and easy ways to engage. 
• Variety - Participants were in favour of the variety of surveys/methods of surveys that we offer, and, in some cases, wanted to see more.
• Proactivity - Customers responded positively to the way we monitor services using transactional / perception surveys and regular reporting.
• Transparency and Communication - In situations where customers didn’t feel motivated to influence our actions, they wanted to be kept informed.​

So, what we did...

• We changed our policy to include more on accessibility and the subjects customers are most interested in.
• We are working with our Community Development Manager to explore how we can use summer events to gather feedback.
• We are looking for ways to increase awareness of our ‘You said, we did’ articles and information on our website.
• Alongside carry out customer tenancy audits - where we will be checking in on customers who we haven't heard from in the last two years.
• Advertise our Board member vacancies to our customers.
• Created a 'suggestion log' for all the comments and feedback we get informally. We'll review all these ideas once a year to see if there are any themes coming through that we can take forward.

What we going to do....

• Test whether offering vouchers or incentives will encourage more people to get involved.
• Try to recruit new Board members who have lived in social housing.
• Our Board are looking into how customers can hold them to account more effectively. They looked at scrutiny panels and committees but weren't sure these were the right way, given the other feedback we had. So, we're still exploring options to find something flexible and accessible to lots of people.