A Playbook for Housing Associations
“I don’t want to think about my housing association.”
We heard that view repeatedly in the 30+ hours of one-to-one interviews we’ve conducted with housing association tenants, shared owners and leaseholders.
No typical organisation wants to hear that their users or customers want to forget they exist. But achieving this status should be worn like a badge of honour. Living in a good home is the foundation of a thriving life. It might be controversial to say, but if they can live their life as their housing association fades into the background then its mission accomplished. And when something breaks that pattern, as it inevitably occasionally will for all tenants, shared owners or leaseholders (herein, “residents”), the housing association that can help resolve the issue without drama and limited disturbance will once again win the inconspicuous prize of little or no thanks. Such is the role of a Premier League referee or parents of teenagers. Of course there is appreciation for a job well done, but it’s limited because the bar set is to disappear.
This pocket-sized playbook is about how to disappear in the eyes of your residents, while popping up just when you need to, to make that unwanted experience for the resident feel as smooth as gliding their index finger across a silk scarf. You already know that 90% of UK housing associations, according to Inside Housing, have embarked on some form of digital transformation, recognising its critical role in meeting evolving customer expectations and improving service delivery. So what will make your transformation different? Below, we will share our learnings and cheatsheets, from our experience listening to the needs of housing residents and delivering digital solutions across two decades that will hopefully help you along your journey. We will look at the lifecycle experience from the residents’ perspective, and then dig into what needs to be done behind the scenes to make it possible.
Do you dare to disappear? If so, read on
Chapter 1: The Disappearing Act – surpassing the bar and fading into the background
In this chapter, we will walk through the stages of a resident’s lifecycle and look at different levels of experience expectation and delivery. We will state what is the expected bar, the level you’ll get no “thanks” for reaching, and we will explore the upper edges of a potential resident experience. You should expect that many of our recommendations will have some digital element. But in some cases, only the reassuring voice of an expert on the phone will suffice, and this is true for residents who are highly technology literate, as it is for those with no access to a smartphone, laptop or tablet.
Envisioning Digital Excellence: A Framework for Growth
New home, new headaches
For most social housing tenants, the process of finding, applying and being allocated a new home, as stressful and uncertain as it can be, happens beyond the reach of the housing association’s experience envelope.
