We asked almost 6,000 residents what they thought of the services we provided in 2019/20 by email, phone and text message surveys. When the COVID-19 pandemic began our colleagues across the business worked quickly to make sure we could continue to deliver essential services to our residents and support those that needed help. We’re proud of the things we’ve achieved throughout the year, however the overall satisfaction for us as a landlord dropped 5%, to 66%, from 2018/19 so we’re working with our residents and using all of the feedback we get to bring about the changes needed to ensure we continue to improve.

By bringing together people, process, data and technology in new ways, we are confident we can make things easier and more efficient for our residents. Our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system has put all of our information on our residents and the homes they live in, in one place. This means anyone from across the business has an accurate view of everything from rent balances to repairs history so when our residents contact us, everyone across the organization has access to the information they need to manage an enquiry.
 

Improving how we manage complaints and repairs

We are beginning to see the benefits of the investment in technology while working to make sure we continue to improve areas where our performance has decreased or we’ve not met our targets. One of the areas we are re-thinking is our approach to complaints; we value complaints as they highlight problems, areas for improvement and give us a chance to put things right. We’ve been working hard to improve our complaints handling. 

Our customers’ experiences of how their complaints are handled need to be improved, so we are completely reviewing our complaints processes and procedures from start to finish. This year 18% of residents were satisfied with the outcome of their complaint, although this represents just 0.3% of all of our customer contact we have brought in a new process and procedure to make sure it improves.

In response to feedback that one of our residents’ biggest frustrations is repairs appointments being missed, we’ve done lots of work with our contractors to make sure that they offer a reliable, good value for money service that meets the standards of our residents. We’ve been closely monitoring the feedback throughout the year and as a result of changes to our service standards and contracts 87% of repairs appointments were kept this year, with 86% of residents satisfied with their last repair. 

To make sure we hit our target of 95% satisfaction next year we'll continue to work with our contractors to ensure all repairs are carried out to a high standard and all residents who have expressed dissatisfaction are now contacted to put the problem right.
We know there is more to do and we are continuing to make improving services a top priority by listening to, and acting on feedback.

We're working hard to make sure our residents can all be as positive as Maria, a long term resident of the Athlone Estate in Kentish Town

To make sure key information on our services is more convenient  for our residents  we're now using  text message updates in addition to our email system to keep everyone up to date with information most relevant to them. This has been really useful throughout the pandemic to provide regular updates on all of the key information our residents need to know; from new COVID-19 guidance to updates on a lift repair, or opportunities for training and employment. We also developed our chatbot, available 24/7 on our website to answer general questions, provide information on  account balances or give information on repairs whether it's 4pm or 4am!