CX Chat July 2023

Welcome to CX Chat, where we’re sharing highlights from the July WCHG Customer Experience Committee (CXC) meeting. CXC is where customers and Group Board members come together to voice their opinions on the subjects that matter to them most. Here’s information from the latest session by Michelle Gregg, CXC Chair.

Michelle GreggHi everyone, I live locally and I’ve worked in housing for more than 35 years, mostly in customer focussed roles. I'm passionate about working with WCHG to help make Wythenshawe an even better place to live. Here's a little bit about me on the WCHG website.

Thanks for taking 5 minutes to read about what the CXC is working on. If you have any questions or you’d like to know more about the work we do, please email us.


Keeping our communities safe

If you’ve ever had a problem with anti-social behaviour in your neighbourhood you’ll know it can have a huge effect. Did you know WCHG invests £1 million each year in helping communities keep safe? They have a team that watches CCTV cameras across the area. They respond to emergencies, 24 hours, 7 days a week. When needed they also support the police. In addition, WCHG has an experienced small team who support people and tackle anti-social behaviour.

To help tackle anti-social behaviour further, the WCHG Youth team runs youth sessions across Wythenshawe. Last year, 314 activities were delivered, alongside 200 information advice and guidance sessions to help young people work through issues. Street-based work, engaging with young people where they spend time, totalled 256 hours across all neighbourhoods. Since 2022, over £500,000 has gone into youth and play services across Wythenshawe through a variety of funders, including WCHG.

If you’d like to give us your views about WCHG’s Community Safety service, you can complete the survey here.

Over the summer the WCHG community safety teams are talking with people about community safety. They want to hear your views about the service and ideas on what could be improved. The CXC will hear all your responses at our September meeting. After that, we’ll help decide what should be in the new WCHG Community Safety Policy.


Contacting Us

Thank you to everyone who gave their views on how easy it is to contact WCHG. We’ve now seen the results of the review by of the customer-led Scrutiny Group. This group of customers investigated the Customer Hub service. They reviewed performance, listened to some customer calls and checked for themselves how the service is doing. The Scrutiny Group gave three recommendations. One was, the average time a customer has to wait to speak to someone on the phone should be less than five minutes. The group asked WCHG management to come up with a plan. The Audit and Risk Committee will make sure this plan is followed.


Communicating what matters to you

We talked about customer communications at both our recent away day and our July meeting. Over the last few months' we've been feeding back customer concerns. They don’t always get the information they need, when they need it and communication can sometimes be poor. The WCHG management team has responded by producing a new communication strategy. We’ve asked for regular progress updates on the strategy delivery. We know having a strategy isn’t enough and we want to see real improvements. One of the ideas is to develop a new Readers’ Panel. This will mean important communication like the annual report, rent statements or tenancy warning letters are looked at by customers. Their comments and feedback will be used before the communication is shared and published. If you’re interested in joining the Readers’ Panel, please email getinvolved@wchg.org.uk.


Future meetings

At future meetings CXC will consider topics such as:

  • How WCHG can best help keep communities safe.
  • Are grass-cutting and communal cleaning services value for money?


Get Involved

If you’re a tenant, leaseholder or shared owner, do you want to have your voice heard? You can get involved with a range of panels and scrutiny activities. Please email, getinvolved@wchg.org.uk for more information.

Thank you for your time,

Michelle”

CX Chat January 2023