The Trouble with Transparency
GreenSquareAccord are (like many other Housing Associations) promoting an image of ‘being transparent’. Sharing stats and highlighting how well they’re doing, or not in some cases, and this is all very commendable stuff. However like everything with GSA, you don’t have to dig too deep before it starts to look like a bit of a charade.
Transparency Vs Reputation Management
An ongoing issue many of the 52,000 GreenSquareAccord residents have is the self promotion. It’s not a problem with self promotion per se, the problem is the image that GreenSquareAccord are flogging is so far removed from the experience residents endure.
This issue has become more concerning since last April when GreenSquareAccord employed Steve Hayes as Director of Corporate Affairs and Communications. This is not a personal attack, we all need to make a living and if an organisation such as GreenSquareAccord feels the need to employ someone to manage their reputation who am I to argue. Except (as stated so many times before) we pay their wages yet reap very little benefit. His employment has not strengthened the maintenance team, hasn’t made our homes safer. He hasn’t reduced call waiting times, and as far as I’m aware, he isn’t even helping to keep the vans clean and on the road. However he has spearheaded the campaign to renew and revamp the public image, both online and real world, of GreenSquareAccord. You can read some examples here.
What else should cause concern about Steve’s recruitment to the role? Well have a look at this video created in-house by GreenSquareAccord while residents went without heating, hot water, fire alarms, adequate security, etc…
That’s right Steve Hayes only moonlights as Director of Corporate Affairs and Communications at GreenSquareAccord. The rest of the time he can be found offering his input at events, as well as providing voiceover duties to GreenSquareAccord and others. Honestly I’m not making it up.
So we have an organisation that prioritises their own reputation over the actual needs of their residents. They have strengthened the PR machine, while repairs and customer service suffer due to staff turnover and fatigue.
Transparency Vs The Devil in the Detail
Sharing data is a step in the right direction and as such, it warranted some praise. I’ve always stated that when GreenSquareAccord start to ‘get things right’ I’ll shout as loud as I do when they don’t. And look I did!
All data has been extracted from the data shared by GreenSquareAccord, you can find this data here. I will split the data into sections as GreenSquareAccord have.
Customer Service
This isn’t all bad news, although customer satisfaction dropped by 2% since December, and calls that were answered within two minutes has decreased by 10%, which means that 49% of calls weren’t answered within two minutes.
Question One - What is the average answering time for these 49% of residents?
Call volumes have decreased but average waiting times has increased.
Question Two - Is that waiting time in addition to the two minutes waiting for the call to be answered, does this mean that customers were forced to listen to your broken hold music for over eight minutes?
GreenSquareAccord received 3,377 fewer emails since December. However it now takes an extra two days to respond. With GreenSquareAccord’s stated aim to respond within two days, there could be a valid reason for this; staff turnover, sickness, etc.
Question Three - With lower call/email traffic why is it taking longer to respond?
Customer satisfaction, itself a bit of a mystery as to how this is quantified. I’ve never been asked for feedback. GreenSquareAccord no longer offer customer surveys although they do still advertise them on their outdated ‘MyGreenSquare’ portal. As we shared before, the response to their surveys couldn’t always be trusted when put under any scrutiny, and raised more questions that GreenSquareAccord were unable or unwilling to answer.
Question Four - How is this customer satisfaction gauged?
Let us assume that the customer satisfaction is graded from the combined total of calls and emails (Dec. 26,014, Jan. 24,617, Feb. 22,084) this equates to:
Dissatisfied customers Dec - 4,945
Dissatisfied customers Jan - 4,924
Dissatisfied customers Feb - 4,638
Obviously these numbers will be reflected in the complaint data, surely…
Repairs
December Repairs reported is too round a number for it to be true, but let’s assume it is. In January I’d expected to see an increase due to issues not being reported over the Christmas period. Additionally, they are publishing February figures on the 20th Feb which means we could easily have another 500 repairs reported in the last week.
Question Five - How many emergency repairs were reported?
Question Six - How long did it take to complete the 5% of emergency repairs not completed with 24 hours?
Routine repairs as always is a major concern with 47% of residents having to wait over 28 days. However without GreenSquareAccord being fully transparent it is impossible to ascertain what this figure is.
Question Seven - How many days (on average) do the 47% of customers, who didn’t have their issues resolved with 28 days, have to wait?
GreenSquareAccord’s percentages written as numbers for residents dissatisfied with repairs:
Dissatisfied customers Dec - 750
Dissatisfied customers Jan - 557
Dissatisfied customers Feb - 642
Obviously these numbers will be reflected in the complaint data, surely…
Complaints
For this let’s do some math:
Customer Service - Dissatisfied customer over the last three months - 14,507
Repairs - Dissatisfied customer over the last three months - 1949
Total dissatisfied customers due to customer service and repairs = 16,456 (Dec, Jan, Feb)
However, we only have in total 397 formal complaints - 2.4% of the people who were not satisfied with the service provided by GreenSquareAccord formally complained. Can that be right? The issue could still be down to GreenSquareAccord making the customer journey too difficult, or the complaints process too time consuming, worse yet complaints may still be being ignored.
Question Eight - Did GreenSquareAccord reach out to the 16,059 residents who have been dissatisfied with the service over the last three months?
Transparency Vs The Real News
If GreenSquareAccord are going to be transparent, we need more than accurate details. We also need to understand what is going on behind closed doors, such as the recent changes to the leadership team, as shared on this site.
Question Nine - Can GreenSquareAccord explain the recent departures from the Leadership Team
It appears that GreenSquareAccord still have a way to go to be ‘that’ transparent, but it’s a good start.
In the meantime this site is still going strong, I was convinced I would have ran out of things to write by now. This site continues to support GreenSquareAccord in achieving their aspiration of ‘pumping up the voice of the customer’, and still offers residents the chance to raise issues. All without any support or input from GreenSquareAccord!
In these reports, there is no mention of how many new homes they’ve built. Since the profit from these new builds help repair the dilapidated stock (our homes), it would be helpful to know how many of the promised homes GreenSquareAccord have actually built.
Question Ten - Are you still on target to build all the new homes you promised?
Perhaps being transparent isn’t as easy as they thought.
We reached out to GreenSquareAccord to see if they are truly seeking to be ‘transparent’, and asked them to provide answers to our ten questions, however GreenSquareAccord did not respond.
Not as transparent as they’d have us all believe…
