Tag Archives: Mystery Shopping

It’s a mystery why most landlords are shopping less

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In the early part of this century  even before the halcyon days when there was a Tenants Services Authority ( who remembers them?), the customer or tenant or leaseholder were King and Queen. Landlords were keen to find out what their service users thought of them!

I spent a lot of time training both residents and landlords in the fine art of Mystery Shopping and getting them to ask meaningful questions that would actually deliver real opinions. Fast forward to today and very few landlords are using this tool or even worse are using a version that is so antiseptic it tells them nothing.

Why is this happening? I have a few theories.

Too truthful

Good Mystery Shopping actually tells you.in real time, what your customers are experiencing. This can often at first be unpalatable. I spent many a feed back session, gently explaining that the written testimonies were what residents were actually getting when they phoned the call centre/used online services/visited the office. With support most landlords could learn to use this as a tool for improvement. Over time staff change and the skills atrophy so the strength and opportunity that ‘shopping’ offered got lost.

Deregulation

As the housing sector has become increasingly deregulated then there has been an associated reduction in the time and money dedicated to seeking resident’s views. Good Mystery shopping which resulted in change  was real plus point for audit and could lead to better satisfaction ratings. Neither of these two carry anything like the importance they used to.

Cuts

Almost always the first thing to go with cuts (or the rent reduction which is the same) is any form of resident involvement. Unfortunately, Mystery Shopping  was seen all too often as an involvement tool. In reality, Mystery Shopping is cheap and effective quality assurance and service improvement.

Landlords, don’t be shy find out what your customers  think by testing your service! With the increasing move into new sectors Mystery shopping offers real feedback. Some of the targeted ‘shops’ we have developed include:

  • The experience of new home owners, share owners and tenants when they move into new homes
  • How was the regeneration for you – learning lessons for new developments
  • Channel Changing – our experience of moving it all online

Any Mystery Shopping needs to be bespoke to the landlord and residents and will tell you how it really is!

 

Why I hate community and resident involvement!

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Well, not per se. It’s the words and what they imply.

I was walking past a well respected community building last night and noticed a sign saying ‘Council Community Involvement unit’. This made me realise how much the word involvement implies a really unbalanced power relationship.

Don’t think so? Can you imagine a Community or Resident Control Unit? No council or housing association would countenance  that combination of words because they imply either residents in charge or more likely being controlled. A very wise man once said that language structures reality. The use of the tepid ‘involvement’ real suggests that any organisation is being rather gracious and letting you  be ‘involved’. Given that residents of a council or housing association,  by the fact they live there, are already involved this seems  just a wee bit paternal (or possibly patronising).

Of course, this is being simplistic because what most organisations probably intend with the word involvement  is involvement in decision making and shaping services. However, this still does not signpost a more equal relationship. For quite awhile organisations played with the idea of  a ‘menu’ of involvement. Maybe we should take this further  with a little chilli like warning symbol to imply how much power you are given:

Resident Survey – 1 Chilli (you maybe listened to)

Mystery Shopping – 2 Chilli (they can’t really ignore the comments)

Scrutiny Panel-  3 Chilli ( you get to ask the awkward questions)

So what’s the suggestion for a better approach. Well, it would help if your landlord or service provider could be honest about what you really can have power over, what you can have a say on and what you can comment on. By being upfront this can at least open the dialogue on where the influence / control line sits. Are you viewed as a customer, a shareholder or an owner? See language does imply different power levels!

And yes I know we use involvement on the website, it’s the current jargon. Let’s change it.