Image: Istock
“It’s the customer, stupid”
How Hyde is putting its customers first
INNOVATION & IMPROVEMENT
Mike Kirk
Chair, The Hyde Group
Mike Kirk
Chair, The Hyde Group
Issue 78 | June 2025
I’m paraphrasing what became a common phrase in the US Presidential Election of 1992 – “it’s the economy, stupid” – which confirmed that the economy was the most important election issue for voters. At Hyde, our top priority is our customers, from talking to them and really hearing them, to designing their services and their homes with them, enabling each customer and community to thrive.
Customers?
We use the term ‘customer’, as we believe it provides them with more agency and fosters the right culture within the organisation. This encourages colleagues to treat each customer as an individual and take personal accountability for meeting their needs. This reliance on our colleagues is critical – we are a people business. Although we own and manage assets, they’re our customers’ homes – and thinking of them in this way places people at the centre of both who we serve and how we do this. Of course, if individual customers wish to be called tenants or residents, that is their prerogative and we will, of course, follow their lead. The priority is to treat everyone as a person.
I am aware that most of our customers have little, or no, choice in who provides their homes and services – but we strive to treat every customer as though they do have a choice. Are we there yet? No, but we’re a board and an organisation which is looking to continually improve, with our customers being the ultimate arbiter of this. The first edition of the new Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) has given us a helpful foundation to build on, alongside our wider performance measures that we scrutinise closely as a board, as does our strategic customer group.
Image: Istock
Social purpose
As Chair of Hyde Group, I’m primarily accountable to our customers, not the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). This is the essence of the co-regulatory regime that we work within, with the RSH seeking assurance from us that we’re delivering on behalf of our customers and meeting all regulatory requirements, rightly holding me and the board to account if we don’t. But what drives us is broader than meeting the regulatory standards. As an organisation with a proud social purpose, we have a moral duty to ensure we are advocating on behalf of our current and future customers; amplifying their voices and working with them collaboratively to achieve more, together.
Change for good
Over the past four years we’ve made fundamental changes to the board and the organisation to ensure we listen to our customers and move towards greater customer involvement in shaping services.
Neighbourhood delivery model
Last year, we restructured the majority of our colleagues to deliver our housing services on a neighbourhood model. The fundamental aim was to enable colleagues to spend more time face to face with our customers, providing them with the mobile digital tools necessary to understand the customer and their home, and to action issues more quickly. Our Neighbourhood Officers have since completed more than 30,000 inspections with 4,000 follow-up repairs raised, cutting the average number of actions from fire risk assessments by half.
Digital accessibility
We’ve also enabled those customers who want to deal with us digitally to do this at their convenience and for an increasing range of services. This has seen the number of calls we handle each week drop by half compared to a year ago, but we’ve also significantly improved services for customers who do need to call us, with our customer service centre now resolving more than 80% of queries during the first call.
Repair delivery
There’s also been a fundamental shift in the delivery of repairs services, now carrying out around 95% of repairs in-house, compared to less than 20% a few years ago. This has significantly improved the quality and timeliness of repairs, despite increases in repair volumes, with customer satisfaction with repairs increasing, complaints decreasing, and most repairs now being completed in three days.
Diverse customer base
Acquiring Pinnacle, the national housing, neighbourhood and community services provider, means the wider Hyde Group now serves an even more diverse customer base, including around 50,000 armed services families, and a wide range of public services and private businesses. I’m also delighted to welcome Tower Hamlets Community Housing (THCH) and its customers into The Hyde Group, with both partnerships providing us with the opportunity to offer a much broader scope of services.
Neighbourhood delivery model
Last year, we restructured the majority of our colleagues to deliver our housing services on a neighbourhood model. The fundamental aim was to enable colleagues to spend more time face to face with our customers, providing them with the mobile digital tools necessary to understand the customer and their home, and to action issues more quickly. Our Neighbourhood Officers have since completed more than 30,000 inspections with 4,000 follow-up repairs raised, cutting the average number of actions from fire risk assessments by half.
Digital accessibility
We’ve also enabled those customers who want to deal with us digitally to do this at their convenience and for an increasing range of services. This has seen the number of calls we handle each week drop by half compared to a year ago, but we’ve also significantly improved services for customers who do need to call us, with our customer service centre now resolving more than 80% of queries during the first call.
Repair delivery
There’s also been a fundamental shift in the delivery of repairs services, now carrying out around 95% of repairs in-house, compared to less than 20% a few years ago. This has significantly improved the quality and timeliness of repairs, despite increases in repair volumes, with customer satisfaction with repairs increasing, complaints decreasing, and most repairs now being completed in three days.
Diverse customer base
Acquiring Pinnacle, the national housing, neighbourhood and community services provider, means the wider Hyde Group now serves an even more diverse customer base, including around 50,000 armed services families, and a wide range of public services and private businesses. I’m also delighted to welcome Tower Hamlets Community Housing (THCH) and its customers into The Hyde Group, with both partnerships providing us with the opportunity to offer a much broader scope of services.
of customer service centre queries now resolved during the first call
of repairs now carried out in-house, compared to less than 20% a few years ago
inspections carried out with 4,000 follow-up repairs raised since introducing a neighbourhood model last year
Updated strategy
Our updated strategy for 2025-2030, which we’ll be launching over the summer, has a simple underlying objective: to be the best housing, property and community services provider in the UK. We’ve grown in scale and scope in the past year, but it was telling that our approach to customers and communities at the board, and throughout the organisation, was a key factor in both THCH’s and Pinnacle’s decision to work with Hyde and to formally join the Group.
We know there are challenges ahead. We can’t forget the wider economy, or the pressure on the funding model for social housing, especially in London. For Hyde, and, I believe, the whole sector, private capital is part of the solution. Without it, regardless of any long-term rent settlement, it will be impossible to ensure existing homes are meeting the current and future needs and expectations of our customers while increasing the delivery of much-needed new homes.
“Our approach to customers and communities... was a key factor in both THCH’s and Pinnacle’s decision to work with Hyde and to formally join the Group.”
