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Andrew Van DoornAndrew is the Chief Executive of HACT. HACT partners with organisations across the housing sector to drive value for residents and ...more
Let’s get it right first time to improve the customer experience
The housing sector should be more concerned that it often fails to provide a quality service first time around, writes Andrew van Doorn
“Can you name one innovation that the sector has developed around customer service that we’ve exported to other sectors?” @AndrewvanDoorn of @HACThousing calls for #ukhousing to get out of its comfort zone #ukhousing“My fear is that we’re too content with the way we’ve always done it, rather than embracing a culture of continuous improvement” @AndrewvanDoorn of @HACThousingThe housing sector should be more concerned that it often fails to provide a quality service first time around, writes @AndrewvanDoorn of @HACThousingOn Monday morning, I was at Inside Housing’s CX 2019 conference as one of four panellists discussing how to put quality at the heart of the customer experience.
I used a quote from John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the Victorian era, to highlight the importance people play in delivering quality: “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.”
After listening to the contributions from my fellow panellists and other speakers at the conference, however, I was struck by how poorly our sector is performing when it comes to delivering a quality customer experience.
“Why do we seem content to be delivering a service that, to put it another way, gets it wrong first time more than 50% of the time?”
There’s a concept in customer service which we should all be aware of, it’s called: ‘getting it right first time’.
According to Jo Causon, chief executive of the Institute of Customer Service, the UK average for getting it right first time is just over 60%. The average for the social housing sector, however, is 17% lower than the average.
Personally, I don’t think this is acceptable. It’s not acceptable on a human level. It’s not acceptable on a governance level. And it’s not acceptable on a financial level.
Why is it that we’re content, as a sector, to treat our customers like this? Why do we seem content to be delivering a service that, to put it another way, gets it wrong first time more than 50% of the time?
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In my talk I used another quote, one from Steve Jobs. He said that one issue about maintaining quality standards was that “...some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected”.
My fear is that this resonates within the sector.
My fear is that within the social housing sector, we’ve come to accept our shortcomings rather than being prepared to challenge them.
My fear is that we’re too content with the way we’ve always done it, rather than embracing a culture of continuous improvement.
To frame it another way, can you name one innovation that the sector has developed around customer service that we’ve exported to other sectors?
And yet, we have a customer base that most marketers would die for.
We should know where our customers live, their family structure, their working habits and their financial profiles.
We should have all of this data at our fingertips as well as much much more.
“As a sector it sometimes feels that we’re not comfortable about taking ourselves out of our comfort zone”
We should then have the ability to target our services according to their unique needs. We should be able to provide quality services to every one of our customers the first time.
More often than not, however, we’re failing at the first hurdle – and we don’t seem to be overly concerned at this.
Overall, however, as a sector it sometimes feels that we’re not comfortable about taking ourselves out of our comfort zone. Innovation, despite the claims of many comms and marketing departments, is not the industry norm.
It is the exception to the rule.
I’m not claiming that HACT has the answers to this issue of culture within the sector. We have some products, ideas and tools that can help you to transform the way you work and we’d be more than happy to talk with you about them. We want to work with the sector to make this change happen.
Ultimately, change has to come from within. Otherwise, we will keep on getting it wrong for our tenants, our communities and our people.
Andrew van Doorn, chief executive, HACT
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