The problem

Hyde’s customers consistently told them their communications were impersonal and unclear. As one of the largest housing associations in England, this was creating a poor experience for thousands of people, particularly those in vulnerable situations.

The problems often came down to a lack of ownership. Teams quoted contracts and took a process-driven approach, believing this was the only way to sound ‘professional’. 

The solution

To make sure we created an approach that met their needs, we spoke to resident groups and Hyde’s teams. We called the new approach ‘I am Hyde’ to inspire personal pride in their communications and show this was everyone’s responsibility. 

We started by rewriting templates and scripts to set the tone. We developed guidance, face-to-face training and digital learning to give Hyde’s teams the skills, tools and confidence to apply the new approach. And we ran our champions academy to empower people around the business, so they could support and inspire their colleagues.

The results

• Email campaigns in 2020 scored Hyde’s highest open rates for any mailing, with 60+% of customers opening them (against an industry benchmark of 25%). 

• Hyde’s highest monthly complaint satisfaction scores increased by 20% (to 83%) after the training and long-term scores improved by 10%. 

• Complaints reduced by 10% and service charge enquiries reduced by 20% following our rewrite of the service charge statement, templates and training. 

• Hyde report seeing customers refer to ‘empathy’ in their verbatim feedback.

• ‘I am Hyde’ has gone beyond its original purpose as a tagline about communication. It’s now used to remind people about taking ownership in their role, and as a rally cry to make them feel inspired and proud (they even named their annual get-together after it).

• The project won GOLD for Delivering Customer Experience at the UK Employee Experience awards.