Capability: Customer Strategy

The bridge between Customer Experience and Brand

Posted on: 24 March 2022
The bridge between Customer Experience and Brand

It’s no surprise that customer experience has long been a priority for brands. There’s an overwhelming supply of research out there which demonstrates the importance and value of investing in CX; IBM found that businesses that prioritise CX see a 3x increase in their revenue.

However, one of the interesting differentiators between those who are really ‘winning’ in this space and those who are playing catch-up is the perception of the role of CX within brand development and communications. Whilst brand touchpoints are usually considered across ATL, TTL, BTL and POS, the reality is that brands are not just experienced within comms – they are engaged with across every touchpoint, platform or environment that a prospect or customer may find themselves in. A person should feel a seamless relationship with your brand, and with each interaction comes a wealth of information to harness and share within the business.

Where brands are losing out

Many businesses operate with marketing and customer experience departments that work independently of each other – the former focused on impressions and engagement metrics and the latter responsible for conversion optimisation and customer satisfaction. The gulf exists because these objectives are isolated, but both departments can offer invaluable information which supports the development of a cohesive customer and brand experience.

Demonstrating and measuring your values

Looking beyond customer experience ‘hygiene factors’ and conversion metrics allows you to build the right environment for your brand to flourish by having a bespoke approach to demonstrating your values. For an insurance brand, this could be the recognition and delivery of empathy and integrity when dealing with claims.

For an automotive brand this could be the sentiment of luxury and special attention that comes from purchasing an expensive new car. The whole brand falls down when these moments don’t live up to expectations, so these values should be present in all interactions, not just in communications.

Learning from the front line

Passing information back upstream is key to ensuring your brand is living up to the promise it sells. Customer reviews, call-centre recordings, satisfaction surveys, wait times and issue resolution rates are examples of information sources that would typically paint a picture of whether your brand is being perceived through the positive lens that is promised in communications.

Audiences will see straight through promises which are made but not kept to. Differentiating yourself in communications is only worthwhile if those differences are experienced when new customers (and existing ones) interact with you. If these are not present, audiences won’t stick around – they decided to give you a chance, so they can do the same for others just as quickly.

Operationally, your teams should be setup to interface and share regularly. Objectives and KPIs should straddle multiple teams and include metrics which govern your values, not just your bottom line.

Start bridging the gap 

At CACI, we’re experienced in helping leading brands deliver a seamless customer experience.  If you’re ready to start bridging the gap between your customer experience and brand but don’t know where to begin, our team of consultants can help you create a customer strategy and customer marketing solutions that deliver.

One size fits none: why the future of effective digital marketing must speak to the individual

Posted on: 10 August 2021
One size fits none: why the future of effective digital marketing must speak to the individual

In a world of multiple channels and differing formats, is it really possible to deliver brand-consistent flawless campaigns whilst communicating on an individual level?

Everyone loves pizza, right? Meet the Taylor family. Three generations of pizza-enthusiasts. Louisa is 15, obsessed with manga, baking, and social media. Her mum, Ellen, 44, loves running, and uses apps to manage her busy life, and her running times. Louisa’s granddad Mick, 71, is never happier than when fishing, and likes to catch up with his pals via email or text. As self-confessed pizza fanatics, loyal to their number one brand, they all want to know when the latest pizza has landed, or about a great deal on their go-to favourite. But should their beloved brand communicate this information in the same way, on the same channel? In short, no. Because which channel could possibly reach them all? And even if there was a single, magic channel, what single message would get them all interested?

Making sure matching luggage doesn’t become lost luggage

The beauty of the digital customer marketing evolution is that products or services with mass appeal can now speak to the masses, individually. Meeting them where they are, and talking their language, so to speak. It’s now eminently possible to make the biggest splash with each interaction by delivering the right message, on the right channel, at the right time.

Whilst it’s crucial to have brand consistency and content to be optimised across channels, we mustn’t forget the nuance that ensures your communication isn’t just a shot in the dark. Receiving generic content that doesn’t fit with your own lived experience or lifestyle is going to be a miss every time. If we start to shift the focus to making an emotional connection, we begin to reframe the expectation that communications can be as unique as the individual receiving them.

To hit the mark requires a level of understanding. You’ve got to know who you’re talking to, you’ve got to appreciate their motivations, and understand the channels you’re working with, to make the message work. Fed by data-led customer insight, a comprehension of your audience enables dynamic content to work at its hardest and humanise the communication. Personalisation can permeate far beyond their name, it can be their latest purchase, their location, even the weather at their location. Analysis of consumer behaviour not only leads to the most appropriate channel, but also aids an understanding of the most effective incentives, that inform the tone and language that will trigger the desired emotion and ultimately create a connection.

Making the connection, one slice at a time

The explosion of digital data makes a connection with customers, in theory, more possible than ever, but is dependent on having the right approach and using tools that are up to the job. Using a data platform such as Tealium to blend data sources, can layer an understanding of each customer. As a result, the creative can be tailored using platforms such as Moveable Ink, to leverage messaging for maximum impact. Harnessing the power of a cross-channel solution such as Braze, will ensure each individual receives a compelling, real-time, personalised experience on each channel.

So, what does an individualised approach look like in practice? Let’s take the example of Louisa’s family and a brand-new meal deal. Reaching Louisa on Snapchat, using localised references to create resonance, and quirky, interactive content that compels her to share, helping get the word out that it’s that time of the week. For Ellen, a rich push notification encouraging her to ditch cooking in favour of a takeaway is positioned as the solution she needs after a busy day. And for Mick, a text to remind him of the tasty pizza he had last week and nudging him to share another with a friend, could be enough to down his fishing rod and place an order.

Of course, the family are most likely to engage with the brand over several channels, necessitating a seamless omnichannel experience. The building of intelligent data profiles through CACI’s consumer segmentation tool, Acorn, can make it easy to recognise your customers, so they can feel seen, making it more about the customer than about the channel.

What can we ‘takeaway’ from the example of the Taylors? As we become ever more saturated in media and our methods of communication diversify, the need for consumers to feel they are the only person in the room becomes ever more pronounced. Moreover, with the right tools and understanding, it is infinitely possible.

Getting the message: the art of communicating content that will connect with your audience

Posted on:
Getting the message: the art of communicating content that will connect with your audience

More than ever customers expect brands to speak to them, not just literally, but with content that they relate to. It’s not enough to have a phenomenal product, a killer marketing strategy and an arsenal of digital tools – if the messaging is off, it could all be for nothing. Your content is the most direct route to connecting with your audience on an individual level, so using techniques including emotion and narrative, as well as making sure the message fits the channel, is vital to maximising every valuable opportunity.

Sorry, do I know you?

The key to on-target messaging is knowing your audience, and it all starts with the data. Once you’ve collected profile data and created meaningful segments through Tealium and CACI’s consumer segmentation tool, Acorn, you will have a deeper level understanding of who you’re talking to. You can personalise content effectively, far beyond first names, using their last interaction or other details to bring a conversation to life, effectively mimicking one-on-one communication. Knowing a customer inside out means you can signal the values that align with theirs or share their vision for a better life. And the more data captured, the more sophisticated and creative the personal touch can become.

Once upon a time…

Once you have an idea of your audience, how can you effectively capture and hold their attention? Evolved over thousands of years, storytelling is the most powerful tool you can use to compel the brain. It has the ability to communicate so much, including, by using the brand as the personality at the centre of the story, who the brand is. Good storytelling uses the power of language and, where possible, causes you to pause and reflect, making it more likely to stick in the memory.

But storytelling doesn’t need words, visual narratives are equally effective and better suited to social media. Videos can prompt a stronger emotional response and are more likely to be shared, whilst imagery can solidify feel and focus. User-generated content can help tell stories whilst having the added benefit of generating trust in the brand. Storytelling in this way isn’t a hard sell. It takes the approach of content marketing, that is, nudging behaviour through being thoughtful, relevant and engaging.

Once more with feeling

Humans are fuelled by emotion – we feel first and think second. Using language that triggers emotions we are hard-wired to respond to can be very effective. Love, fear, anger and guilt are all primitive drivers of behaviour. By knowing your audience, you can speak directly to their individual joys, fears and pain points, and ultimately inspire them to take action. For example, a car’s anti-lock braking system may help you have more control whilst driving, but if you say it helps keep your family safe, it taps into a desire to protect your loved ones and is more likely to resonate.

After the turmoil of Covid, most people feel the need for connection more than ever. The global pandemic has reminded us that we all crave the very human experience of bonding.

Using emotion to cultivate a sense of belonging can establish a connection which is more impactful and longer lasting. It goes beyond selling, it’s a way of bringing authenticity to a brand’s identity and helps the reader buy into the brand values and ethos.

Mixed messages – making the message work for the channel

Increasingly consumers take different pathways to making a purchase, having different touchpoints along the way. Whilst it’s important messaging is consistent, it doesn’t have to be adhered to rigidly. With an awareness of which audience uses each channel, the message can be creatively tailored using a tool such as Spirable to have the most impact on the target audience.

For example, Instagram is more likely to be used by Millennials or Generation Z, so messaging needs to align with their interests and needs, and the tone will be more assertive and dynamic. Email marketing provides an opportunity to pique interest through weaving more narrative, focusing on messaging that resonates with the demographic, whilst push notifications can use real-time content to engage and visuals to bring a message to life.

There’s no one quick fix to creating a message that connects with your audience. But a combination of personalisation, focus on tapping into an emotion and telling a story are more likely to make your reader sit up and take notice, and make sure your message doesn’t get lost in the noise.

Driving a better understanding of Electric Vehicles

Posted on: 8 July 2021
Driving a better understanding of Electric Vehicles

Rapid growth in Electric Vehicle (EVs) sales in recent years (180% YoY in 2020), aided by strict government emissions targets for 2030 and substantial investment from automotive manufacturers, suggests that UK consumers are all set to go along for the electrified ride. However, even as EVs now account for 6.6%* of the overall UK car market (Autocar 2021) and, 9% of our recent survey audience already own one, the gap between the perception and the reality of owning and driving an EV will need to be bridged before they become an automatic consideration. In order to capitalise on the increasing demand for EVs, companies in the automotive sector – whether manufacturer, service or utility provider – need to be able to identify and address the unique concerns of different consumer audiences.

In our previous blog “Understanding Differing Consumer Attitudes on the path to EV adoption ”, we explored how attitudes to EVs differ amongst CACI’s Acorn  classifications of the UK Population. However, going electric is more of a lifestyle change than simply buying your next car and factors such as battery size and range, where you live and, the availability of charging infrastructure are all key considerations. Our survey allows us to compare the perceptions of those who don’t yet own an EV with those who do, so how does the reality of going electric live up to the promise (or threat)?

There was little separating owners from non-owners when it came to the key advantages of driving an EV, suggesting that manufacturers and advocates have done a good job of selling the dream.

*Includes sales of battery electric vehicles only, excludes plug in hybrids.

While only 28% of owners highlighted lower servicing costs as a benefit (compared to 33% of non-owners), this was reversed when it came to fuel/charging costs, which 71% of owners see as a benefit (compared to 69%).

The biggest discrepancy in response, related to EVs producing less noise pollution. Only 41% of non-owners recognised this as a benefit, whereas 59% of owners enjoyed the quieter ride their EV gave them (and those around them).

Non-owners tended to be more sceptical of the disadvantages of owning an EV, perhaps as a result of negative press and a limited understanding of their mobility requirements. Take range anxiety, or concern that an electric battery won’t provide enough charge for drivers to get from A to B without needing to stop for an extended period to recharge. 55% of non-owners were concerned by range and when coupled with worries over the number of public charge points (62%), it all sounds very doom and gloom.

But compare that with the perceptions of owners, where only 36% worry about running out of charge and 40% about the access to public charge points and it does start to sound more manageable. Generally, today’s EVs can cover a range between 150-300 miles and the latest Zapmap figures (April 2021) show there are more than 23k public charge devices at almost 15k locations in the UK.

Whether owners or not, respondents across all Acorn categories believe the biggest advantage of an EV is the reduced air pollution. And while cost of purchase is still a concern, it should be addressed as more EVs enter the market and second-hand vehicles become available. Knowing which benefits to promote and how to ease the concerns around perceived disadvantages is critical to delivering the right messages to the right audiences.

At CACI, we’re helping our clients to drive the electric revolution

Whether using an off-the-shelf customer segmentation like Acorn, a bespoke approach based on first party data alone or a hybrid solution combining elements of both, driving engagement from your audience will depend on your content and messaging. It’s clear that individual motivations for purchasing an EV will need to be exploited, while more importantly, concerns regarding owning one, will need to be addressed head-on.

It’s widely agreed that the purchase consideration period for an EV is substantially longer than for a new petrol or diesel model. So, it’s important to be able to identify which purchase phase an individual is in – awareness, consideration, purchase – to understand what information and content they’ll need to progress through what could be a longer journey than normal. To do that, CACI creates detailed contact strategies that allow brands to nurture their audiences until they’re ready to convert.

We worked closely with EDF Energy to identify which of their customers might already own or be likely to purchase an EV. By using CACI’s Acorn data and TGI profiles, overlaid onto their customer segments, we were able to design and deploy a series of highly targeted campaigns to upsell their EV tariffs.

More recently, our Data Science team have created a ‘propensity to buy EV’ model that has enabled Mazda to target the best audiences for their new all-electric MX-30. Through our Strategic Consulting and Campaign Engagement teams, we have delivered tailored campaigns and engaging content to the best audiences.

The innovative approach taken by CACI to launch our pivotal model, particularly the impressive use of data in forming the customer journey, has led to results that speak for themselves.

James Crouch, Customer Insight/Digital Transformation Manager, Mazda

Speak to us if you have any questions or want to learn more about our survey results.

Data Science in the water sector – How to create behavioural change

Posted on: 29 June 2021
Data Science in the water sector – How to create behavioural change

Engaging customers in an industry without direct competition can be a difficult conundrum – how do you effectively engage your customers in your services, and drive behaviour change to meet water efficiency goals?

Recently, CACI held a roundtable for the water sector to dive into the approaches that have been taken to understand customers, personalise communications and ultimately drive the behaviour change needed to keep down demand.

CACI Data and the Benefit for Customer Insight – Penny Walton, United Utilities

United Utilities has been on a journey to better understand its customers and to ensure that when interacting with them, this communication is through the right channels with the right messages.

In order to achieve this, CACI has created a bespoke segmentation that uses CACI’s household level demographic data in combination with United Utilities’ transactional data to segment the United Utilities customers into one of eight segments. The primary focus of this was to meet customer requirements, improve communications, and focus resources through considering ‘how do we want customers to feel and behave when we interact with them’.

The segmentation has been used throughout the business to drive improvements in communication with customers, ensuring that these are delivered through the channels that the customers prefer, and creating a better quality of communication. This has been used effectively across billing, priority services, metering, switching to digital, and water efficiency.

Having this approach in place during Covid has been vital as it’s ensured targeted communications to reach the right customers through the right channels and fundamentally it has given United Utilities the ability to reach out to customers with lower affordability with bespoke messaging that is designed to resonate with the different segments.

The customer segmentation now frames every aspect that is looked at when considering communicating with customers.

Driving behavioural change with actionable insight – Ed Sewell, Data Strategy Partner at CACI

When considering an example outside of the water sector, Change4Life is an excellent example of creating behavioural change through actionable insight. It has been incredibly successful at driving behaviour change in hard to reach groups and has now been running for 11 years.

Through creating highly engaging and personalised messages, the government was able to reach high risk groups and, all-importantly, to keep them engaged overtime to really reach the key goals of the programme.

There were a number of different campaigns that came out of the programme, some of which have been highly memorable such as ‘Couch to 5k’, and all of which were based from segmentation and underlying data that drove the personalisation and engagement.

Whilst this is an example of a highly effective government led behaviour change strategy, these techniques and approach can be applied to the water sector to increase customer engagement and drive behaviour change around water efficiency and responsibility.

Key Takeaways

The most resounding point shared during the discussion was the power of adding data and data science to customer insights and understanding, as it supports creating more effective communication, drives down costs, and creates better outcomes.

Here are some of the key insights and takeaways that were shared:

  • Significant uptakes have been seen in affordability programmes due to reaching the right customers
  • Blending customer transactional data, complaints data, and demographic data is key to creating actionable insights
  • Being able to focus on those that are interested in engaging with water efficiency and being able to amend messaging for the different types of customers (whether they are more interested in environment, cost, savings, etc.) makes a big difference in driving change
  • It’s about getting the right messages to the right people
  • This approach supports driving down operational costs as majority of customers move digital
  • Ultimately, more personalised content drives better outcomes
  • Interest in the environment and concern around climate change is at the highest yet so now is a key time to increase focus on water efficiency
  • Ensuring that there are no ethical issues in the build of the segmentation or the resulting communications

What’s Next

Look out for our next roundtable in the series which will be focussed on the power of population projections for the water sector.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch should you want to hear more!

Is your digital marketing team structured for success?

Posted on: 24 June 2021
Is your digital marketing team structured for success?

To create real marketing magic, you need an extraordinary alchemy of people, process and technology

Agility, flexibility, responsiveness… you’re building them all into your digital marketing strategy right now. Everyone knows how important it is to be ready to react to coming trends and sudden consumer and competitor movements in this unpredictable, digital-first marketplace.

Devising the strategy and maintaining continuous oversight of performance metrics so you know when you need to change, is one thing. Delivering real-time optimisation of your campaigns to fulfil the strategy and respond to trends is quite another.

Your resources aren’t as fickle as your consumers

To get the job done, you depend on your talented people and capable systems. These resources are substantial, not ephemeral. You can’t just ditch and switch them in an instant. Unless you have unlimited budget, you can’t keep adding more people to your team with the exact digital or creative skills you need for a campaign moment. You can’t retrain your people in a snap to meet a sudden spike in demand for certain tasks.

There’s less of an ethical issue with hiring and firing your inanimate technology solutions, but it still costs money to make changes and there’s risk inherent in messing with established connections and procedures. You need to keep your campaigns and customer intelligence current and scaling with demand, but you don’t want to break anything, nor find your campaign delivery capability is compromised during upgrades or development projects.

Outsourcing is not such a dirty word these days

This is why outsourcing has come back into favour as a means of powering the digital marketing function in leading consumer organisations. Before, it was seen as a strength to have all your resources in-house, from IT and systems hardware to expert staff. That way you could be sure of guarding talented people and technology know-how for competitive advantage. But now, the pace of innovation in marketing technology and the accelerated digital-first consumer market together make using on-demand, specialist resources a very attractive solution.

It’s the same argument that’s driving the mass adoption of cloud technology and digital services, as opposed to on-premises hardware and wholly-owned software solutions. By paying for what you need when you need it and dispensing with the burden of long-term ownership, you create freedom to adapt and focus on what you can uniquely deliver for your customers.

But let’s get back to digital customer engagement. Structuring your marketing team, processes, data and technology to meet demand is now the biggest differentiator for digital consumer marketeers. Agility comes from having the specialist expertise you need on tap. Maintain a talented team in-house, with strong core delivery, management and strategic skills. Then supplement them with third party digital marketing experts who have experience and best practice knowledge from across the market. Then you have that magical combination of stability and agility you need to support your campaign delivery.

The dream team and the dream tech are what we call co-managed services

If you choose the right partner, you’ll get to exploit learning from their cross-sector experience. You’ll get leading-edge technology advice and the ability to implant project teams to develop, augment, connect and replace crucial elements of your data and insight ecosystem and martech stack. You’ll get insights into the latest smart approaches to customer insight, customer experience optimisation and creative execution.

You can pull in account managers, marketing and database specialists, SCV optimisers, data planners and campaign managers to step in and deliver whatever you need… and step out when they’re done, with no ongoing overhead. They can upweight your core resources to handle essential management and operations or tackle a specific requirement or project that’s outside the day-to-day.

What’s the downside? You might create a management headache in trying to co-ordinate a myriad of individual or niche contributors to deliver all this specialist input. That’s why we advocate choosing a single, trusted, expert partner with a strong and proven talent bench of experts right across the board, and an obsession with the latest developments in global digital marketing. With a range of clients on board, such a partner can afford to nurture specialist talent in every area and make them immediately available as needed.

Co-managed services for digital customer engagement could be the alchemy you need to deliver exceptional, powerful, customer marketing magic. In a very fast changing environment, it’s a model that works, if you can find the perfect partner.

Of course, you can see where we’re going with this. We’re big believers in co-managed services for digital marketing. And we’ve set ourselves up to offer a unique breadth of vendor-agnostic expertise, from a talented team of leading digital marketers. If you’d like to explore how the CACI team could augment your people, process and digital resource in one or more areas through managed services, please get in touch.

Your moment of digital marketing truth

Posted on: 17 June 2021
Your moment of digital marketing truth

It’s time to cast a critical eye over your activities in four key strategy areas, to make sure you’re set up for sustainable success.

Hands up if you’ve heard the phrase “the world has changed” too many times lately for it to mean anything any more. Yep, same. The world is always changing. It’s not the change itself that’s remarkable, it’s the speed of change lately that’s shaken everything up. Consumers have formed and moved on from one preference to another, acquiring skills and forming opinions super-rapidly in challenging times. Innovative technology, apps and platforms have been hurled into the uncharted waters of this urgent demand. As marketers, we’ve all acted and reacted to deliver the best digital experiences we could lay our hands on.

But with the best will in the world, not every decision has been a good or sustainable one. Chances are, your digital marketing has taken some big leaps forward to meet short-term opportunities, but there will have been some misses as well as hits. As consumers begin to resume more recognisably normal lives, now’s the time to regroup.

We’re now working with many clients to take stock of current reality and to help them sense-check and develop their marketing and customer experience strategy for what lies ahead. If you’re ready to do the same, here are the four key strategy areas we recommend you focus on, to maintain and grow your market share by providing valued customer experiences that capture the zeitgeist.

KPIs

Take a good look at your KPIs and consider how you’re identifying success in your channels and marketing mix. Is everything connected or are people creating campaigns in silos, to meet conflicting or separate targets? You need a coherent strategy that embraces all your channels and customer requirements.

Messaging

How much is your messaging driven by a direct understanding of customer needs, as revealed by behavioural, demographic and research data? If you’ve been heavy on batch and push messaging to cover all the bases in a volatile market, it’s time to make a change to a more targeted, responsive and segmented approach.

Customer journeys

From acquisition and engagement to lapsed customers and off-boarding, you need journeys that address every life stage for your brand. We recommend developing a roadmap for each customer journey, working from identified customer requirements to define the technology, data structures and skills you need to create and deliver the right experiences.

Contact strategy

Take a look at how you’re using channels and your range of content. Make sure you’re engaging with customers at each stage of their journeys on key dates and at key points, providing relevant, personalised experiences, across all channels they engage with, when they engage with them.

Resetting your strategy now is vital: just look around at what competitors are doing. Everyone’s sharpening up their act, but budgets are tighter for most brands and businesses. Taking risks is not high on the boardroom agenda in a period of economic uncertainty. But ROI and growth are still top of the agenda, as markets emerge from survival mode and leaders adopt a competitive approach to recovery.

Digital marketers need to use assets and resources as effectively as they can. There’s a great opportunity in a more digital-first consumer market, but everyone is chasing their share of it. Trying to get back on track by resuming your pre-2020 plans won’t work. That’s why a strategy review is key – to make sure your next tranche of digital marketing campaigns and tactics are well-conceived and executed, to meet current customer needs in these interesting times.

If you’d like to move quickly and decisively with a strategy review and update, our customer engagement strategy and consulting team is here to help. We have 25+ years’ experience working with leading consumer marketing brands. We know the markets, the data, the tools and the tech – we can help you recalibrate with confidence and make changes rapidly and effectively to level up your customer experiences.

 

5 lessons from the pandemic about the value of Housing Association data

Posted on: 1 June 2021

WHAT HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS HAVE LEARNED THAT’S ALREADY CHANGING THE FUTURE FOR THEIR COMMUNITIES

The extreme situation created by the Covid pandemic brought the value of data into the spotlight for Housing Associations, as they strove to support tenants and identify priority needs under lockdown conditions, at a time when face to face interaction was difficult or impossible.

As lockdown conditions ease, Housing Associations are considering what they’ve learned in these extremely challenging times and how it will influence their future strategy and operations.

The Covid-19 situation surfaced urgent needs and opportunities for many Housing Associations. Teams worked tirelessly to identify and support vulnerable residents and to maintain services while adhering to infection control guidelines. Planning and delivery would have been easier with clear and accessible information about the particular characteristics of properties and the needs of their inhabitants.

Working with Housing Associations throughout and beyond the pandemic, our sector experts have summarised five key factors that will influence the coming demand for housing and related services. Now’s the time to review your data strategy, to make sure your organisation has the information it needs in order to assess, monitor, and meet residents’ current needs and to model, predict and plan for ongoing and future needs in the post-pandemic landscape.

Digitalisation of services

Face-to-face and direct contact has traditionally been a core route to delivering services and providing information and engagement with Housing Association residents. In lockdown, this became very difficult. Many residents are both willing and able to engage through online media: some Housing Associations were able to offer online or mobile communication and services to replace in-person support at least temporarily. For example, holding consultations over mobile phone video-calling services like WhatsApp or Zoom, or allowing fault reporting via email or text-based services.

Building a robust and permanent digital service platform has emerged as a priority for many Housing Associations. It may have been a potential future project before: the pandemic has proved the demand and need. To offer a full range of tenant information and services online in the most efficient way, Housing Associations need complete and accurate data about the people they serve and the properties they live in. With this, they can make sure they offer the right digital support to the people who need it, providing a tailored experience for their household.

Self-help

Offering a digital service platform can improve resident experiences beyond basic fault reporting, bill paying and account information checking. If your Housing Association has accurate information about the systems and appliances installed in every property, you can go further, giving people online advice and trouble-shooting guides for common problems, for example re-igniting a boiler’s pilot light. This can be empowering and reassuring for residents who are able and willing to help themselves, removing the frustration of a long wait for support or not being able to report a problem by phone out of hours.

You can offer up-to-date online resources with advice on relevant topics like money management, community support networks and even job opportunities. In the pandemic, FAQs about coronavirus restrictions helped residents adapt to different ways of operating and understand how to access support and services.

Digital exclusion

Digital service delivery is empowering and meets expectations for many housing association residents who are digitally capable. But it cannot meet everyone’s needs. Some residents are digitally excluded, because they don’t have smartphones or other connected technology, or because they aren’t able to use it with confidence.

Knowing who cannot access digital services is crucial for a modern Housing Association. By collecting and recording this information accurately, you can make evidence-based decisions about the value and likely uptake of digital services. Most importantly, you can ensure that those who can’t use them have alternative channels of support. Face to face and paper-based communication are essential for some residents: if you know who they are, you can focus your time and resources on the people who need traditional support.

Vulnerability

With many residents confined to their homes during the lockdown, Housing Associations sought to make sure that everyone had the information and assistance they needed. With a complete data record for every household, it’s easier to identify residents who may have particular health or accessibility needs.

Beyond lockdown, this kind of information is very valuable for prioritising repairs and services to vulnerable residents. It also helps housing associations to ensure that they continue to provide accommodation with all the facilities that may be needed by a person with disabilities or particular needs.

This is sensitive data: it’s important that residents understand why you’re asking them to provide it. If you can explain clearly the benefits to them of sharing personal and health information, they are more likely to provide it accurately.

Economic hardship

In your Housing Association’s catchment, major employers can have a big impact on prosperity and hardship amongst residents. The post-pandemic economy is volatile and is likely to influence changes in employment and income for your householders. If you hold employment and financial data about your residents, you can be proactive in making sure their rents are affordable and anticipating issues that may arise from redundancy or reduced pay.

Third-party income and lifestyle data can help you identify trends in your area that may affect current and future tenants. This can also influence your recommendations to developers and housebuilders about the type and affordability of the housing stock that’s being built for the future.

All these types of data can help Housing Associations deliver better services for residents, responding more quickly and efficiently and planning for the future based on reliable evidence. The challenge is making sure you collect consistent and accurate data and that it’s shared securely within the organisation, so everyone has a clear and consistent picture for decision-making and prioritisation.

If you’d like to know more about developing a data strategy that supports your Housing Association objectives and improves residents’ experiences, download our free white paper “Insight for building flourishing communities”.