Rewind 5 years – it’s 2017. Remember when petrol cost just £1.17 per litre, the average house price was roughly £223,000 and baked beans were just 53p for a 150g tin. Fast forward to today, petrol costs roughly £1.89 per litre, the average house price is £281,161 and baked beans cost 65p for a tin… Our money is disappearing into thin air!
It’s been 40 years since UK inflation was this high. Office for National Statistics reported that the annual rate reached 9.4% in June, up from 9.1% in May. Soaring food and fuel prices were largely behind the increase. Unfortunately, the rest of the year isn’t looking promising as the inflation forecast is due to peak in October.
According to Housing Sector Survey 2022, the cost of living crisis was voted the second highest challenge for the sector, with concerns about residents’ wellbeing and financial impact on rent arrears being the most important. So how can housing association providers support their customers during these tough times?
Offer your customers financial support
When we’re strapped for cash, we budget what’s a necessity versus what’s a nice to have. These basic requirements fit into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where he states the needs at the bottom of the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up. Putting this into a budget perspective, people tend to prioritise food and having a roof over their head, before they start considering the nice things to have like a trip bowling with friends or beauty products to boost their self-esteem.
As a housing provider, you can provide your customers with financial support at all levels of the hierarchy as not everyone will want the same kind of support. For example, those struggling to pay their bills may want support buying everyday essentials such as food and clothes, whereas other customers may be focused on saving money to buy those nicer things to have.
Using a reward platform, you can tailor the support you offer by segmenting your audience. For some people you may wish to give discounts and savings at highstreets stores such as ASDA, Tesco, Iceland, ASOS, Clarks and H&M. There’s also a wide range of discounts you can offer to those customers in Ireland so you can target your audience appropriately.
Stonewater recently launched their reward platform to offer customers savings on everyday essentials and within the first two months of launch, their customers collectively saved more than £13,500, with the top-visited retailers being Asda, Dunelm and Tesco.
By giving your customers this additional financial support, you can strengthen your relationships with them as they value you as more than just their housing provider.
Give your customers rewards to say thanks
As we said before, when budgeting during the cost of living crisis, people tend to prioritise the basic needs like clothing and food and this is exactly how offering savings on everyday essentials can help. Unfortunately, saving money during these tough times can be a challenge, so if you have your eye on a new gadget, holiday or new bike, you might be waiting a while… So how can you as a housing provider, take your support to the next level by offering support to help your customers buy those nicer things in life?
Offering rewards is a win-win situation here. Not only do you give customers the chance to own something snazzy that they might not be able to afford, but you can give them this in return for something. So what exactly do we mean here?
Think about those behaviours you want to see from your customers. It might be to pay their bills on time. It might be to share feedback regularly. It might be to report their repairs using the online portal. The list goes on! By incentivising the behaviours you want to see, you’re more likely to see those behaviours repeated again, again and again!
Using the Incentivesmart platform, you can allocate points to your customers every time they demonstrate the behaviours you want to see. Customers can watch their points balance flourish, motivating them to earn more and when the time comes, redeem them on their desired reward. With hundreds and hundreds of rewards to choose from, there’s something for everyone!
Provide customers with useful resources
It can be a little overwhelming when money is tight and this can impact your wellbeing. Your customers may be trying to figure out how to pay bills on time, how to change energy supplier, how to pay off debts and access grants, just to name but a few things. Not knowing the answers to these questions can cause upset and stress. Housing providers can go above and beyond for their customers by hosting all these important financial resources in one central hub. This will reduce the customer’s stress and support their wellbeing as they’ll know exactly where to go should they need a helping hand. Stonewater did just this by sharing a financial guide and energy hub with its customers via their online portal.
If you’re interested in joining Stonewater in their customer-centric approach and showing your support during the cost of living crisis, check out our housing association page to learn more and get started.
