Scrutiny service review – Customer communications

At Selwood Housing, we understand the importance of communicating with our customers. The scrutiny team have made recommendations on how to improve our customer communications across nearly all of their previous reviews.

The scrutiny team felt that it was a good time to review Selwood Housing’s customer communications in order to add value to and improve our services.

The key objectives of this review were:

• To understand the quality, volume and type of communications Selwood Housing sends to its customers
• To work with Selwood Housing staff to establish how and why they send communications to customers
• To consult and review the perceptions of a representative sample of customers

Following the review, report a project was put in place by the communications team to act on the scrutiny team’s recommendations.  The following actions were agreed and have now been implemented:

1. Create templates for key customer letters (prioritising most frequently sent letters and letters requiring most urgent action)
2. Guidance and recommendations to accompany templates to assist staff in writing new letters to include points outlined in review document
3. Guidelines for teams to regularly review their communications for any updates
4. Establish communications champions in key departments – to receive training from marketing and comms and advise colleagues on clear, effective communications
5. Make communications toolkits training available to all staff.