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Around two thirds of all Tracker clients recently took part in our research programme to help us understand the priorities and challenges within the social housing sector.
The information has helped with our implementation of a number of improvements to the existing Tracker software, to further improve stability and performance, particularly when running very large reports or uploading large survey lists into the Feedback Module.
This insight has also helped guide Arena on the development of a completely new version of Tracker which we are aiming to launch in spring 2014 and we plan to hopefully migrate all current users across to the new system by the autumn of 2014.
Our Findings: The research programme highlighted that Tracker users are happy with Arena as a software supplier and a service partner. What’s more almost three quarters of all users would recommend Tracker to others. Chief Executives and Directors reported that their staff are happy with Tracker and they hear “no complaints” and 80% of all recipients also said the Tracker Support Desk was good.
When it comes to defining current strategic business goals within the social housing sector, respondents told us the three key ‘front of mind’ issues were: Improving service; delivering value for money (including reducing the cost base and waste); and importantly, growth.
Key challenges: Here again, the three main challenges were commonly identified as:
- External financial changes resulting from changes of government, deregulation, welfare reform and the economic environment.
- Internal challenges of having the right people, with the right skills in the right place, supported by appropriate IT and processes.
- The need to deliver efficiencies and improve service with only limited customer insight and where organisations face skills and IT concerns.
Changing needs and priorities: Our research programme made it really apparent that the past couple of years have brought about a significant change in attitudes and approach, which has resulted in the needs of many Tracker users changing and new priorities being set. These include:
- The emphasis of Tenant Participation and involvement has changed, resulting in changes to team sizes, structures and objectives.
- The need to demonstrate that landlords are delivering value, and are using survey feedback and tenant participation to drive service improvements.
- There is a strong desire amongst landlords to understand much more about their tenants: their needs, cost profiles and behaviours, in order to better provide services and target resources more effectively.
- Wanting help with segmenting tenants (something which is common in the commercial environment), to help plan services and develop the right support for people.
- Landlords also want to deliver a “Social Return on Investment” from community investments but are finding this hard to quantify at present and therefore need help with this issue.
- Having the right staff skills and the right software was also highlighted as being a challenge, particularly around Social Return on Investment and Customer Insight.
Experiences of Tracker: A good number of Tracker users also used the opportunity to feed back various comments to us and these included:
- Tracker users found significant benefits if they use the system effectively and most said they find the system “easy to use”, for example; “It makes it a lot easier and less time consuming to find a list of residents with the same interest and recruit them for a course/ event.”
- Some users are not getting the most out of their Tracker software due to either a lack of time or staff skills. Some said “I have to admit that it is probably my own lack of knowledge.”
- Others are using it very effectively. One client said 33 services were changed as a result of feedback last year. Another said; “We have used it very effectively to identify residents who would benefit from new services or from signposting to other agencies.”
- Users want to see improved reporting functionality, speed of access and fewer system errors in the future. We will work on this as we develop your new system, and modify the existing one.
To find out how TP Tracker and services provided by Arena Partnership could help your organisation. Please email: info@arenapartnership.co.uk or phone 01603 813932.
