As a service delivery organisation, we face constant demand pressure on our already overstretched services. This isn’t going to change any time soon –  so it’s essential we optimise and improve the way our clients engage with our services.  

Previously, we talked about redefining what ‘urgency’ means to different people, and how it could impact their experience of using our housing helpline service. We introduced our emergency helpline number, which gives service users the option to decide how important their … Read more

The housing enquiries people come to us with vary from minor landlord disputes, to homeless families facing a night on the streets. That’s why we decided to examine how we could make sure our housing advisers help callers to our helpline who are in the most urgent need.  

This also gave us the opportunity to see how we could improve our self-help services – like our advice webpages – for users who don’t necessarily need to speak to an expert … Read more

Following a review of our services back in 2017, we began to think about why and how people access our help. We were keen to understand if there was anything we could do to improve the way our website users find the help they need.

We started by looking at the in-depth analysis produced by our researchers, and tried to pinpoint some trends. We also considered the expectations our website users would have for the kind of services we provide, … Read more

As the first service designer here at Shelter, it’s been vital for me to prove the value of service design throughout our work. I’ve had the opportunity to deliver a significant step forward in the quality and quantity of advice we provide to thousands of people each day, so thought I’d share how this all came about.

Our national helpline is open 365 days a year, offering expert advice to anyone struggling with housing and homelessness-related issues. In 2016/17, our … Read more