Turning customer insight into better service, not just better systems
In our sector, it’s easy to talk about transformation as if the answer lies in a new platform, a new portal, a new CRM or yet another digital channel. All of those can help but customers rarely describe a good service in technical terms.
Customers just want to get through, for us to then understand the problem and give them clear updates. They want the right person to have the right information and, wherever possible, they want the problem sorted out first time without having to chase. Above all, they want the process to feel easy and require minimal effort, and be confident that we’re taking ownership and progressing their problem.
Joined-up thinking
Customer management isn’t only about how many channels we offer or if a particular system has been implemented. It’s about whether we can consistently join up the customer journey, the operational process, the data we hold and the technologies our colleagues use every day.
For most housing providers, TSMs, complaints, contact demand, customer feedback and engagement activities usually sit within separate reporting lines. However, the real value arrives when these sources of insight are translated into a structured improvement backlog spanning service, process, data, communication and system changes.
Not always technology
Poor customer experience isn’t always caused by a system problem. It might be a process gap, unclear ownership, inconsistent communication, missing data, training needs or a policy that no longer reflects how the service actually works. Equally, some process improvements won’t stick unless the supporting systems and integrations are changed at the same time.
The opportunity is to stop treating those things separately. For example, if complaints are telling us that customers are chasing for updates then that may point to a communications problem but it may also be a process design issue or a lack of visibility across different teams.
If rates for first-time fixes aren’t where they need to be, the answer may sit partly in scheduling, partly in diagnosis, partly in the quality of customer information and partly in how colleagues access guidance at the point of service.
If TSMs identify areas where customer experience, satisfaction, trust or service outcomes are falling short of expectations, that insight should help shape both operational improvement priorities and the technology roadmap.
This is where technology has an important role but it shouldn’t lead the conversation on its own. Technology teams must be close enough to the customer experience to understand the problems they’re helping to solve. That doesn’t mean technology owns every single service problem but it does mean system decisions, integrations, data design and automation should be shaped by real insights from customers and colleagues, and not by assumptions about how a process works.
Delivering the basics
Good technology should make the basics easier to deliver. It should reduce avoidable contact, improve visibility, support better handovers, give colleagues clearer information and help customers understand what is happening. Good technology should also make it easier to spot patterns, whether that’s repeated contacts, recurrent complaints, channel failures or services where expectations aren’t being met.
The starting point must be understanding customers’ needs, expectations and experiences, and then designing the customer journey, processes and technology around them, rather than around system capability.
Better connections
For Gentoo, our focus is on strengthening the connection between customer insight, operational priorities and our technology roadmap. That means looking at contact channels, customer feedback, insights from complaints, service performance, colleagues’ observations and digital adoption as part of the same overall picture. It also means that improvements must be prioritised, sequenced and owned properly, rather than tackled as isolated fixes.
This is particularly important because we all have to respond to increasing regulation, higher customer expectations and more pressure on our resources, so getting the basics right is by no means a low ambition.
Better customer management won’t come from just adding more channels or collecting more data. It’ll come from using the insight we already have more intentionally, joining it to operational decision-making and making sure technology change is focused on the areas that will improve reliability, communication and resolution.
Service confidence
For us, our next stage of customer management is less about digital channel shift and more about service confidence and designing those services to meet the diverse needs of all customers.
These are the questions that matter:
Can our customers trust that we understand their problems?
Can our colleagues see the information they need?
Can we resolve more things first time?
Can we communicate clearly without customers having to chase us?
Can our customers get their problems sorted out with minimal effort?
And can we learn from complaints and feedback in a way that changes the system, not just the individual case?
Here at Gentoo, all complaints, customer feedback, contact centre conversations, colleague observations and service performance data are increasingly viewed as part of the same picture. Together, they help us identify customer priorities, understand pain points and target improvement activities where it’ll have the greatest impact.
Customer insight helps to shape our operational priorities, technology roadmap and strategic direction. Operational teams provide the expertise to turn those insights into action, while technology enables more efficient, consistent and connected services.
A continuous cycle
Success comes from creating a continuous cycle of listening, learning and acting, where customer insight informs decision-making, improvement activity is prioritised against strategic objectives, and customers experience tangible improvements to services, processes and communication.
The future of customer management will be defined by how effectively housing providers combine customer insight, operational expertise and technology investment to improve the experiences customers have every day.
Technology obviously plays a major role but it should be an enabler rather than the starting point. Lasting improvement comes when customers’ needs shape your priorities, operational teams shape the solutions and technology enables the delivery.
Paul Brockbanks is the IT director and Chris Robert is the director of customer at Gentoo Group.
