We are improving our services by listening to you. We regularly seek your feedback through our:
- Customer Partnership Panel (CPP)
- Virtual Customer Panel (VCP)
- Transactional surveys
- Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs)
- Customer advocates (previously known as our complaints and feedback team)
Listening to this feedback is important, but acting on it is the key to improving our services and customer experience. That’s why we have been keeping track of the service improvements we are making with your help.
We are committed to putting customers at the heart of our organisation and we will continue to listen and act. All the projects listed below started thanks to your feedback.
Keeping properties in good repair
Property maintenance
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
We are working with our Customer Partnership Panel to review the service we offer, including the targets we set for works to be completed. We are also reviewing our repairs policy. By doing this we hope to create and deliver a service that better meets your needs.
Target date: March 2025
Time taken to complete a repair
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
We have brought in additional resources for the 2024-25 financial year to tackle our repairs backlog. We are improving our analysis of the types of repairs we receive, so we can make sure we are better prepared to meet the needs of our customers in the future. We are also reviewing how to communicate with you better about the status of your repair.
Target date: April 2025
Damp and mould
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
We will contact customers within two working days of receiving a report of damp and mould and complete an inspection within seven days. We are reviewing our damp and mould strategy and have increased resources for the 2024-25 financial year, to help us respond to reports of damp and mould more quickly and take appropriate action.
Target date: To be reviewed quarterly
Communal areas
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
We are reviewing how our communal areas are managed, as well as looking at any relevant policies.
Target date: April 2025
Respectful and helpful engagement
Accessibility
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
We are training our customer service advisors to support our neurodivergent customers, so that they can communicate with you in a way that suits your needs.
Target date: November 2024
Service quality
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
We are working hard to find ways to understand what our customers experience when requesting a service from us, for example, raising a repair. To do this, we are using journey mapping to identify areas we can improve for our customers.
Target date: October 2024
Involved customers
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
We will increase the diversity of our customers involved in our Customer Partnership Panel (CPP) and Virtual Customer Panel (VCP) through an ongoing recruitment plan. This is to make sure the CPP and VCP are more reflective of our diverse customer base.
Target date: April 2025
Direct Debits
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
We are reviewing the systems we use to set up Direct Debits, with a focus on how we can make the letters sent more customer friendly and reduce errors.
Target date: March 2025
Effective handling of complaints
Complaints improvements
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
We have created a new customer advocacy team who will manage complaints centrally, to streamline the process for our customers and make it easier for us to see where we can identify improvements and learn from our mistakes. This will also ensure consistency and improve the way we communicate about complaints. Recruitment for the team is currently underway.
Target date: August 2024
Complaints resolutions
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
We are reviewing our process around complaint resolution, making sure that all agreed solutions are completed in a timely manner and the customer is kept up to date.
Target date: December 2024
Home visits
Current Status: In progress
What are we doing?
Our Customer Advocacy Team are to receive training so they can arrange face-to-face meetings with complainants, if necessary, particularly when the case is a complex one.
Target date: October 2024
Improvements we’ve already made
We could improve how we manage noise complaints.
We have developed a good neighbourhood management policy which sets out how we can support you to resolve issues in your community, such as noise complaints. It clarifies the difference between neighbourhood disputes and anti-social behaviour (ASB) and will help us to respond to these issues more effectively.
We could improve the way we communicate with you about delays to repairs.
We have updated the messaging on our phone line and website to be more transparent about the issues we are experiencing.
We could improve how we communicate with you about repair and damp and mould appointments.
We will no longer change appointments without notifying you and will let you know any changes or updates about your repair as soon as possible. We have also introduced calling cards to let you know when external works have been completed and reviewed our procedure for when we are unable to access a property to complete a repair.
We need to improve how we manage damp and mould in our homes.
We have reviewed our damp and mould process and have put in place new timescales for responding and attending to reports of damp and mould.
You want us to reduce the wait times on our phones.
We undertook a recruitment campaign to increase the number of customer service colleagues and fill vacant positions. Our customer services team continues to recruit when a position becomes available and try to reduce the impact on wait times. This will remain under review.
You wanted to help shape our policies and have more input.
All our policies are reviewed by our Customer Partnership Panel (CPP) to make sure that their feedback has been considered and put in place, where possible, before being shared with all our customers. Their feedback recently helped to share our new revised corporate plan.
We could make our corporate plan more customer friendly.
Our Customer Partnership Panel reviewed our corporate plan and based on their recommendations we have changed some of the language used and removed jargon.
We could make improvements to how we manage complaints.
We investigated the types of complaints that received the highest dissatisfaction in our Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) 2023-24 and have made sure that we are making improvements in these areas.
You wanted us to be more transparent and you wanted to have more influence.
A customer is now a member of our board, attending board meetings as a customer co-optee and providing a link between the CPP and the board.
You wanted to have more of a say in how we manage complaints.
We have created the Customer Experience Committee. This committee is made up of involved tenants and reviews our complaints performance as well as our learning from these complaints, our TSM results and our performance quarterly. All findings are reported to the board through the customer co-optee.