Mystery Shopping Syndicate for Social Landlords

ORC International has announced a syndicated mystery-shopping product for social landlords in the UK who are preparing for Housing Corporation inspections or looking to test their delivery of housing services and telephone helplines against Customer Charters. The service was launched at two seminars in early July.

The concept behind ORC HousingCheck is to bring peer organisations together to share the cost of setting up a mystery shopping programme, and provide a forum for benchmarking results and discussing good practice. The social landlords involved will be able to use the quarterly programme to measure quality of customer care, and define how well housing enquiries are handled within each organisation, with a view to improving services for tenants.

The HousingCheck programme was developed following the formation of a North West syndicate comprising eight social landlords, and involves professional 'shoppers' - posing as tenants - making housing enquiries, both through telephone calls and by visiting local offices. Using a rating system, the trained shoppers measure how enquiries are dealt with. Each RSL is then presented with their own set of results, which can be viewed via an on-line portal or via a paper copy.

Sharon McCambridge, a member of the North West syndicate who is assistant
director customer services at housing organisation Space, says that 'One of the Housing Corporation's main objectives is to place greater focus on client needs and on improving the performance of housing associations in service outcomes for tenants. The housing syndicate is providing us with the opportunity to test the level of service our tenants are receiving, and the use of independent mystery shoppers is bringing a high level of objectivity to the exercise'.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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