Removing the ‘us and them’ mindset from customer service

A recent case prompted us to think about this in more depth. A tenant in Bedford returned home distressed and put a fist through their front door. The out-of-hours repairs service quickly made the property safe. So far, so good. 

But what followed was not good.

First, the follow-on repair took 64 working days. Then, the contractor assumed the door was double-glazed, so brought in a specialist from miles away, and invoiced nearly £970!

Our first response focused on whether the repair was rechargeable. We used words like ‘deliberate damage’ and ‘vandalism’. The tenant and their support worker told us the workmanship was poor and the language we’d used hurt.  

“Good intentions get worn down by volume, pressure, targets and that next urgent email. Complacency is not the same as wilful neglect, but can turn into that”

When we looked into the complaint, they were right. The repair was substandard and the price was inflated. And what was key was that our tone was wrong for someone who had been in crisis.

We halved the recharge, apologised and changed our process so that timeline, quality and cost are checked – not just the recharge status.

That is the minimum standard we should expect of ourselves. 

Complacency shows up in many guises. It is the email that says, “We met the KPI, so move on.” It is the reply that blames a tenant for causing damp, instead of asking how a family in a small flat can dry clothes safely and affordably. It is the letter that leads with policy compliance, not with the person who will read it.

In a world of changing regulation, people assume the risk has been covered somewhere else. We default to the tick box. We stop asking, “Is this the right target, and does it drive the right behaviour?”

We need old heads who hold organisational memory, and we need new heads who ask naive questions – questions that are often the wisest ones.

The care and support sector has a well-developed learning approach to closed cultures. At Dimensions, we have developed our own learning programme, which we call complacency training, for our housing teams.

Our aim is to give colleagues safe language to challenge each other. Not a gotcha, not a disciplinary framework, but a prompt. Are we becoming complacent here? Have we stopped seeing this? Teams can name the issue without fear, and go from there.

That matters in housing repairs, tenancy management, communications and contractor management just as much as it matters in care and support. We want to introduce this at our contractor meetings and quality checks so the habit is reinforced, not left to chance.

“From Grenfell to the tragic death of Awaab Ishak, the public has heard a chorus of people saying, “We told them.” We must be sure we listen, and act”

Being frank does not undermine trust. It builds it. We are proud of the work our teams do daily, and proud of colleagues who took a hard look at the ‘Bedford door case’ and changed how we worked. I am more interested in honest learning than in polished narratives.

When complaints arrive, our first question should be: what happened here, and what does a fair response look like for this person? If the tone of our letter would upset us if we received it, rewrite it.

The context of the wider sector matters too. From Grenfell to the tragic death of Awaab Ishak, the public has heard a chorus of people saying, “We told them.” We must be sure we listen, and act.

Our responsibility is to create homes where people are kept safe and treated with respect, and to run services that stand up to the ‘passport test’, that the Housing Ombudsman talked about recently at Inside Housing’s Regulation and Governance Conference.

The test is as follows: if government can simplify a process to the point where you apply online and the document arrives in days, we in housing can also raise our sights, simplify processes and deliver faster, clearer outcomes.

Here is my challenge to myself, my team and peers in social housing. First, let’s adopt a shared language that lets staff, at every level, call out complacency without fear.

Second, pair every policy KPI with a human check. Did the action fix the problem for this person, at a fair cost, within a fair time? 

Third, stop using ‘they.’ Write every letter, every email, as if it landed on your own kitchen table. Finally, invite tenant scrutiny of the finer details. This is a route to better decisions, better spend and better homes.

That is the opposite of complacency. And it is the non-complacent culture we, and fellow social housing providers, must build. Our tenants deserve nothing less. And remember: social housing only works when ‘they’ becomes ‘us.’

Julia Ashley, chief housing and communications officer, Dimensions