VA announces implementation of VSignals Survey for Specially Adapted Housing program

VA will begin implementing the VSignals survey for the Specially Adapted Housing (SAH) program, administered by VA Loan Guaranty Service (LGY).

The SAH program administers housing adaptation grants to seriously disabled service members and Veterans with certain, very severe service-connected disabilities. SAH grants assist eligible service members and Veterans with building, remodeling or purchasing an adapted home that is suited to the individual Veteran’s specific, unique physical needs. These adaptations, funded by SAH grants, help these American heroes live more independent lives.

VSignals will help the SAH program identify important moments during SAH grant eligibility and funds disbursement administration where VA staff can learn important lessons through feedback from service member and Veteran customers. These lessons will help identify and create essential changes to the grant process which will improve customer experiences. The VSignals SAH survey will also arrange and make permanent a systematic method of responding to and resolving any customer service issues that a Veteran recipient of an SAH grant may encounter.

VSignals key facts

• The VSignals survey allows VA to collect, analyze and track customer experience feedback from service members, Veterans and other stakeholders, and use it to identify opportunities to enhance the SAH customer experience.
• The SAH VSignals survey implementation reinforces VA’s commitment to provide proactive, personalized, benefit-centric resources to seriously disabled service members and Veterans.

“Enhancing the customer service experience for Specially Adapted Housing (SAH) grant recipients means being attentive to the experiences of our most seriously disabled Veterans,” said John Bell III, executive director of VA’s Loan Guaranty Service. “The feedback we receive from these selfless American heroes will be incorporated into strategies and planning to improve the grant process, make it more efficient for the Veteran, and inform SAH staff on how best to engage at important moments in the grant process itself.”

VA’s Veteran Experience Office (VEO) developed VSignals to collect, analyze and track customer experience feedback from Veterans and other stakeholders on important programs administered by VA. VSignals helps identify opportunities to enhance VA’s customer experience and improve overall VA performance. VA is deploying a collection of three VSignals surveys on the SAH program.

These SAH VSignals surveys will measure Veterans’ customer experience at three critical milestones (known as “Moments that Matter”) in their SAH grant usage journey:

• Survey 1: Initial Interview
• Survey 2: Grant Approval
• Survey 3: Final Grant Fund Disbursement

Each of these SAH VSignals surveys contains a set of Likert (1 to 5 scale) questions; each question is aligned to one of the seven Office of Management and Budget (OMB) A-11 customer experience domains. Survey data is collected on a weekly basis and reported on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis.

Once participants complete the above milestones during the SAH grant life cycle they will receive an invitation to complete the survey via email. The message contains a weblink, enabling the Veteran to complete the survey using an online interface. Participation is optional, and Veterans may decline to participate and opt out of future invitations. To prevent survey fatigue, VSignals maintains a quarantine protocol across all VA VSignals surveys to limit the number of times a Veteran may be contacted.

VSignals surveys and feedback will benefit future SAH grant recipients by helping VA adjust its grant use processes to streamline the experience for Veteran grant recipients, and VA is eager to receive and incorporate invaluable feedback from Veterans adapting their homes to enhance their abilities to live more independent lives after sacrificing enormously for our country.

More information on the SAH program can be found online at VA’s website: https://www.va.gov/housing-assistance/disability-housing-grants/.

Service members and Veterans with additional questions about the SAH program are encouraged to contact their Regional Loan Center (RLC) at 1-877-827-3702.