The Customer Engagement Strategy 2022-2025 can be found below:

1. Our vision

Landlord Services will engage all of its tenant and leaseholder customers offering them a wide range of opportunities to work with us to scrutinise, improve and deliver excellent services.

2. Our priorities

2.1 Our customer engagement priorities are linked to two of the key themes in Charnwood Borough Council’s corporate plan for 2020- 2024:

  • Healthy communities
  • Your council

2.2 Landlord Services is working in partnership with all other council services to fulfil all themes although our particular focus is on the above two themes as they apply to the council’s tenants and leaseholders. These are reflected in the following four priorities we set for delivering our existing customer engagement strategy:

  • To make it easier for our customers to engage in ways and on matters that interest them. We will offer a range of options and both traditional and technology-based channels of communication
  • To be more accountable for the services we deliver by empowering our residents to challenge us and to get involved in setting priorities
  • To use customer feedback to improve our housing services and increase value for money. We will systematically gather feedback from our customers and keep them informed about how their contributions have been used to drive continuous improvement
  • To embed customer engagement in all our services. We will ensure that our officers and contractors understand this is a shared responsibility.

3. Scope of our strategy

3.1 Our customer engagement strategy will ensure we meet our regulatory requirements by providing a range of opportunities for customers to influence and be involved in:

  • decision-making about our housing related services, including setting of service standards and agreeing local offers for service delivery
  • developing housing-related policies and strategic priorities
  • scrutinising our performance and recommending how performance might be improved.

3.2 Customer engagement is about how we:

  • ensure that our tenants and leaseholders are able to challenge and give their views on the housing services we deliver.
  • inform and consult customers about changes to our housing services
  • get feedback from customers about our housing services.

3.3 This strategy is relevant to:

  • our tenants and leaseholders
  • elected members
  • landlord services officers and contractors
  • housing applicants.

4. Customer engagement team achievements

The pandemic has been a challenging time for the customer engagement team to undertake many of its activities. There is one customer engagement officer who is managed by the principal officer for customer engagement and older persons’ services within the landlord services team. Despite the restrictions during 2021 the customer engagement team achieved the following:

  • Obtained computer equipment for involved tenants to enable them to engage in online meetings.
  • Appointed new members to Housing Management Advisory Board (HMAB)
  • Held online meetings with members of Charnwood Housing Residents’ Forum (CHRF)
  • Resumed meetings of the editorial panel
  • Held the annual garden competition
  • Reviewed and recommenced the tenant bid process and completed works suspended as a result of to the pandemic
  • Supported projects and events through the community initiative fund and EEM community donations fund
  • Worked closely with the council’s communications team to provide updates and information through social media
  • Supported the council’s response to the pandemic in providing assistance to residents and our local community.

5. Priorities for 2022-2025

5.1 The priorities that were set for the existing customer engagement strategy will not change in this new strategy; there will, however, be different actions to deliver on the objectives set under these priorities They will be revisited and updated as necessary during the life of this strategy.

Priority one: To make it easier for our customers to engage us in ways and on issues that interest them

We will:

  • review and expand upon the structures of engagement and the menu of opportunities for tenants and leaseholders to engage in and develop ways for customers to get involved for short periods and more informally rather than having to make a long-term, formal commitment
  • provide ways for customers to ask questions, give us feedback and access information using their phones, tablets or computers. That will include developing our website and we will explore with our customers how they would like to use digital routes such as SMS text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and/or other applications.

Priority two: To be more accountable for the services we deliver

We will:

  • consult our customers on the kind of information they want from us, how often and how they would like it presented. We will continue to involve customers in designing the content and format of the information we provide
  • empower customers to hold us to account by providing appropriate information, training, support and feedback
  • develop and support a resident-led scrutiny process that will challenge our housing services and make recommendations for improvement
  • commit to providing feedback and a response to our customers following their feedback and enquiries.

Priority three: To use customer feedback to improve our housing services and increase value for money

We will:

  • systematically gather feedback from our customers, using it to understand service weaknesses, identify good practice and provide transparency over value for money of our services
  • develop a range of ways to gather feedback, including surveys, mystery shopping and formal and informal consultations
  • produce a regular “You said, we did,” article for Your Homes Matter highlighting where customer feedback has made a difference to how we deliver our services.

Priority four: To embed customer engagement in all our services

We will:

  • Provide briefing sessions to councillors, to officers in all council services and to our contractors on the importance of engaging with the council’s tenants and leaseholders as part of delivering the council’s corporate plan. Agree with them how we will work together to meet our shared responsibility and deliver this strategy
  • Introduce core objectives and targets for customer engagement through personal development plans (or the equivalent) for all Landlord Services officers, including use of the tenant bids budget and EEM’s community donation fund. This could include attending events, such as the Tenant Network, or identifying tenant bid projects.

5.2 The detailed action plan to deliver on these priorities can be found in appendix B.

6. Delivering the strategy

We will deliver this strategy through implementing our customer engagement model and will measure and report on our performance. The action plan to deliver this strategy is attached as appendix B.

7. Customer engagement model

Our customer engagement model to support delivery of this strategy is illustrated in the diagram on page 6 as appendix A.

8. Key performance indicators

8.1 We will report on our performance against a set of indicators agreed with our customers. Regular reports will be made to HMAB and CHRF and to all customers in our annual report.

8.2 The current indicators are:

  • The number of tenants and the number of leaseholders who are actively and regularly engaged with us
  • The number of engaged customers who are members of minority and hard to reach groups
  • The number of informal contacts made with customers in which some form of feedback is gathered
  • The number of changes made as a result of customer engagement
  • Any savings identified as a result of customer engagement.

Customer Engagement Strategy 2022 – 2025 appendices

Appendix A - The Customer Engagement Model

Appendix B - Action Plan

Last updated: Thu 15th February, 2024 @ 08:32