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Reducing Gas & Electrical Safety Rates No Access Rates In Social Housing - A Behavioural Approach.

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The £100 Million Pound Problem.

Gaining access is the ‘elephant in the room’ when it comes to safety and compliance.  However, there is typically a story behind every door.  When residents refuse access, it is rarely because they do not want the actual safety check done.  Often, there is some other issue at play. The true reasons could be anything from language or cultural barriers, physical or mental health issues, lack of trust and a fear that the visit is  actually for some other reason, rent arrears or lack of credit on a meter or any combination of these and other factors.

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The Engage-Me platform has been developed to help Social Landlords really understand their customers in terms of vulnerability & behaviour by integrating, collecting & managing your customer data, combined with behavioural science & Machine Learning to slash no access rates.

           

The Cost Of No Access - Gas Only:

  • £49 - £65 million of waste per year

  • £14 million in court cases

  • £35 million - the cost of multiple access attempts

Understanding Barriers To Access

1. Do you know and understand your residents well enough?

 Social Housing has a larger percentage of residents with complex needs, mental health conditions and physical health conditions & with an ageing demographic, understanding need & vulnerability will be ever more important.

 

The traditional engagement model of "one size fits all" for gaining access for safety checks & servicing is no longer fit for purpose &  the Consumer Standards now legally require Social Landlords to know their customers & tailor engagement and service provision accordingly.             

 

We now need to transition to a customer centric engagement & service deliver model which encompasses:  

Tenant Need's & Vulnerabilities

We need to collect foundational data & build and maintain a "golden record" for residents which understands tenants in detail, taking into account vulnerabilities, mental health & physical disabilities. 

Culture, Language & Lifestyle

Language & culture have a huge impact on no access rates.  By understanding these impacts & having a multi-lingual capability, both the purpose & importance of access for safety visits can be communicated. 

Understanding Engagement Preferances

Engagement can be tailored based on this improved understanding, with tenant preferences & channels being built in &  communication with  representatives integrated into the comms model.  

The Servicing Appointment Process 

 The appointment process  should fit with the needs & vulnerabilities of the tenants & should reduce friction in rescheduling appointments, whilst communicating the core purpose of keeping residents safe. 

2. Are your current IT systems, engagement processes and data fit for purpose?

Profiling No Access Risk

By better understanding tenants behaviour & & having joined up data (e.g. understanding arrears position) an accurate overall picture of no access risk can be established & segmentation, choice architecture & enhanced appointent processes implemented.

Leveraging Behavioural Science & Nudges

By implementing a behavioural approach, combined with segmentation, a choice architecture approach can be implemented, which delivers different nudges to different behavioural segments to further drive down no access.

Tailoring & Optimising Engagement 

Engagement can be tailored based on resident needs and vulnerability as well as no access risk.  Vulnerable tenants can nominate representatives & reasonable adjustments implemented to reduce no access.  

Multilingual, Personalised Comms

By understanding and addressing language & cultural considerations, hard to engage with communities can be brought on board in understanding why safety visits are crucial, with multi-lingal comms further supporting no access reduction.

3. Are you collecting & leveraging data on no access ?

Understanding no-access reasons

By closing the loop on no access events, meaningful data on the reasons behind unsuccessful access attempts can be collected & analysed to drive continuous improvements, with a focus on understanding the "true causes" of no access.   

Educating residents & engaging better

By adopting an engagement led approach, we help residents take responsibility for their own safety and that of their property; educating them about why access is needed to carry out essential checks can be key to getting across the door.

Joined up thinking & data

Data silos drive inefficiency - silent voice initiatives & other key data like arrears position should be incorporated, along with known resident vulnerabilities & needs to build an informed predictive model which delivers the right message ,via the right channel at the right time.

Communicating the opportunity cost of no access

By adopting a behavioural approach & highlighting the cost of no access & how this money could be better spend on improving homes & communities, a first time access culture can be established.  

A Story Behind Every Door: The no access challenge.

  • 1 in 11 over 65's in the UK suffer from Dementia

  • 8.9% of the population in England & Wales have a first language which is not English.

  • 90 different languages are now spoken in England & Wales 

  • 1in 3 people who live in social housing have a mental health problem

Benefits 

Up to 50% Reduction In No Access

By moving to a consultative approach to appointment setting, combined with behaviourally based engagement no access rates can be halved. 

More Repairs, Less Co2

Perform more safety visits & do more with your existing servicing engineers, whilst at the same time reducing fuel costs & Co2

Reduce Planner / Scheduler Effort

Slash the number of planners involved in rebooking gas & electrical safety appointments.  The solution can also auto-rebook missed appointments via SMS.  

Improved Compliance & Better Auditability

A detailed audit of all engagements, combined with the higher first time visit success rates increased compliance & reduces the number of forced accesses.  

 No Access -
The Risks:

  • Safety – Essential safety checks not carried out & risk of incident impacting your whole community

  • Legal - Risk of prosecution 

  • Regulatory – Risk of downgrades

  • Reputational Damage- Media coverage

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