Taff Housing has been trialling the use of behavioural insights, commonly known as ‘nudge’, in order to improve the performance of its rent collections and reduce arrears, following consultancy advice from Just Housing Group.
Behavioural insights, frequently used by the public sector, HMRC, DVLA and energy suppliers, are intended to take advantage of how people really behave to enable positive changes in behaviour. Since Just Housing’s workshop, Taff Housing has successfully completed its first live behavioural insights trial which has seen an increase in tenant engagement from 46 per cent to 82 per cent.
Rhodri Thomas, customer services manager, Taff Housing, said, “The subject of behavioural insights was completely new to us. During Just Housing’s workshop we decided to look at how we communicate during the first stage of our arrears procedure; this gave us a great springboard to go away and implement the theory ourselves.
“At the end of our first trial, we compared our normal stage-one letter response rate against the new letter, text message and phone call and we were astounded by the results. We are delighted to have worked with Just Housing to implement this new approach, which we believe will significantly improve our performance, ultimately resulting in cost savings.”
