At LiveWest, we believe in a home for everyone.

We own and manage over 40,000 homes across the South West, from Cornwall to Gloucestershire. We have ambitious plans to invest £1 billion in the South West economy and to build 5,000 new affordable homes in the region over the next five years.

This is part of LiveWest taking huge steps towards alleviating the region’s housing shortage, in an area of high housing need as well as high house prices which makes accessing housing particularly challenging for many families.

We are committed to embedding a culture of listening to our customers and acting on their feedback.  We amplify the voices of our customers at LiveWest and ensure that their influence leads to positive improvements in service delivery.

LiveWest's scrutiny group, InFocus, was created four years ago and has been pivotal in ensuring customer involvement is the golden thread that runs through our organisation and the lens through which everything is seen, developed and delivered.

The volunteer group has been successful in elevating customer voice to develop our services for more than 80,000 LiveWest customers.

As well as InFocus, LiveWest has a further 180 volunteer members across our Shared Ownership Virtual Panel, Customer Communications Group, Estate Services Champions and Procurement Group.

Our property services team has an in-house team of 680 people, of which there are 460 trade operatives who complete repairs, empty homes refurbishment, compliance safety checks, minor works, kitchen and bathroom programmes, boiler and air source heat pump installations, and fire door inspections and installations.

InFocus is a customer group set up in 2018 who undertake scrutiny reviews and assist with policies and procedures.  It reports to our Customer Services Committee quarterly, sometimes through written reports, videos or in person through the chair and vice chair. 

James Masters  |  InFocus volunteer since 2018 and group chair

“We’ve got people from all different backgrounds. We all live in different schemes and have different elements we want to improve on. It’s a really friendly group.”

Currently, over 50 customers are part of the InFocus group which has developed into three areas: friends of InFocus, service reviews and the policy strategy and performance group.

The service review volunteers meet every week to thoroughly explore different areas of the organisation.

James said: “Sometimes, we identify ways that help LiveWest deliver its services and create efficiencies. If there’s a policy being written by LiveWest or it’s due to be renewed, the organisation will then share it with our members and get some feedback."

InFocus have recently been involved in the design of our updated repairs portal, they have had input into our updated aids and adaptations policy, fed back on our damp and mould policy, the safety and compliance policy, and more recently have undertaken a repairs scrutiny and reviewed our repairs offer.

LiveWest has a Customer Service Committee which reports into the board. The chair and vice chair attend Customer Services Committee. They meet quarterly, two in-person and two virtually. InFocus present a report to Customer Services Committee, sometimes written and sometimes through video.

For the repairs scrutiny, InFocus met with several property services’ lead technicians and planners virtually. They also met with the director of property services and the head of customer services virtually. InFocus had follow-up questions for the director of property services.

Some really great questions were asked by InFocus to the planners, lead technicians and the director of property to get a better understanding of how we work.

Some of the questions raised with the lead technicians were:

• Do you think that you are allocated too much or too little time for individual jobs?
• Do you think you receive sufficient training from LiveWest to keep your skills up to date?
• What would you say is the percentage of jobs you turn up to and the customer is not at home?
• What happens if someone is not at home? How long do you leave it before you card and leave?
• What happens when the customer service centre is closed and an emergency job comes in? How are these allocated?
• If the operative doesn’t get the job done first time, what happens from operative perspective?
• What is the policy with regards to making good rather than replacing when an operative attends a repair? How do LiveWest agree what should be replaced rather than repaired? 
• When are you advised of which jobs you are going to attend? Would you have a list the day before?
• Do operatives have stock onboard their vans?
• How do you feel remote diagnostic is helping with the role of the operatives?
• Do operatives have the opportunity to undertake more jobs in the home if they notice something isn’t right in a home?
• Do operatives have the opportunity to report safeguarding (abuse/neglect) issues if they notice things in the home?
• Adapted homes - do operatives know what adaptive equipment is in the property?

Some of the questions raised with the director of property services were:

• How many jobs were completed on the first visit? How many jobs in total do LiveWest get each month?
• Are there plans to reduce timescales from jobs being reported to final completion?
• How well is the remote diagnostic working at present? How many jobs have been dealt with using this?
• Are there plans to upgrade and improve the stock surveys? What components are recorded?
• Are the repair teams used effectively?
• How are we performing on the Tenancy Satisfaction Measures?
• LiveWest has a section within the repairs service offer around the way they work in customers’ homes. What do you do to remind operatives of these guidelines? How do customers know these guidelines exist? Not everyone would want to read through a large document but would be good to know these exist. 

Following the engagement on the scrutiny, LiveWest followed up with a separate session on the repairs service offer. InFocus met virtually with the regional head of property operations and the head of customer services.

InFocus made several recommendations following the repairs scrutiny, some which are still ongoing as we progress through making relevant changes.

• Suggested improvements to our new customer portal, including appointment times and call waiting messages on the phone
• Further education to customers about the out of hours emergency service - add articles on Facebook, website and in the customer newsletter and include a message on the telephone out of hours to explain that customers are calling the LiveWest out of hours emergency service
• Suggestions on how we can improve customer access for repairs and compliance checks
• Suggestions to consider expanding the remote diagnostic team, from the review, they felt this would not only increase the repairs completed on the first visit, but it would save the business money and free up operatives to complete more repairs
• Review the repairs service offer/standard with InFocus:
  • Trade operatives to explain next steps to customers if not able to fix first time, and give a timescale
  • Suggestion to improve communication with everyone in a block of flats when a communal repair has been reported
  • Contractors to work to the same standard guidance as inhouse team - this has been reviewed as part of the repairs standard with InFocus and sent out to all contractors working with LiveWest.
  • Contractors to use the same tone of voice and letters as inhouse team, there should be no difference
  • Explore sending customers an instant survey following a repair
  • Explain how we consider replace v repair to customers and how we use our data.
• Recommendations following the review of the repairs service offer/standard were focussed on communication. InFocus felt the document was too long, they suggested an introduction of filters or a shorter version and ensure its accessible for customers with different needs.

Finally, InFocus suggested including a section on what happens when things go wrong. LiveWest’s complaint process is already on the website however, having another link to this would be useful.

Top three lessons learnt

1. Embedding a customer focus group into process reviews are essential to provide more diverse, inclusive thinking. Ensure customers are part of the review or new process, not an add on.
2. Our everyday language working in a housing association may not be clear to customers. Think about what you are saying and how you are saying it.
3. Ask customers about customers. When questioned on why, how and what step back and use this to check is this really working? Can we change the way we do things and can we work smarter to deliver for our customers?