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 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 carrying 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