Why Repair Journeys Can Feel Harder Than They Need To...

A repairs service can be staffed by caring, capable people and still feel difficult for customers to navigate.

That was one of the lessons from Impact Innovation’s work with Plus Dane Housing. Customers appreciated the professionalism of colleagues and operatives, but communication was not always clear throughout the repair. Some did not know when someone would arrive or what would happen next. Waiting for an operative or contractor could add to the frustration.

These problems are familiar territory for housing associations. A customer experiences a repair as one journey, even when several teams, systems and processes are involved in delivering it. If information is lost between those stages, the customer may have to chase an update or repeat their story.

With Plus Dane, we started by looking at how the service worked in practice. Listening to calls, joining customer visits, reviewing feedback and mapping real stories helped colleagues see both the strengths of the existing service and the points where the journey became difficult.

The team then shaped a simpler future Responsive Repairs journey. Its priorities included getting the right information at first contact, setting the repair up correctly, keeping customers informed, explaining what had been done and checking the outcome before closing the repair. Early results from the programme showed a reported 20% increase in customer satisfaction.

For housing associations, the opportunity is to look beyond each separate task and design the complete experience from the customer’s point of view. That makes it easier to identify where better communication, clearer ownership and more useful information could make a difference.