We want to provide good homes and services for our customers

We continued to work through the action plan from the RSP review into how customers can access our services and and the steps we take to prioritise customers according to their needs.

Recommendations now complete include:

• Introducing consistent service level agreements – i.e. the time period in which we commit to responding – across all contact channels. This ensures customers receive the same standard of service whichever contact method they choose.
  
  
• Reviewing the opening hours of the Customer Service Team. with more call centre staff now available between 8am and 5pm. Although the centre now shuts an hour earlier, the allocation of resources better reflects the time of day customers call us. The amount of time customers have to wait when when they contact us on the phone has reduced.
  
  
• Ongoing promotion of the customer online portal, as a way for customers to manage their home and tenancy at a time to suit them – enhancing convenience and reducing call volumes into the contact centre.
  
  
• Ensuring appointment text messages are issued when an emergency repair is logged. This builds  a customer’s confidence that the situation is being dealt with, while they wait for an operative to attend.
  
  
• Providing the Customer Service Team with access to the repairs cancellations log. This means they are able to quickly and easily look up this information and provide customers with the reason why the appointment hasn’t been able to go ahead. This provides greater transparency and thee aim is for it to reduce frustrations with the service.
  
  
• Increasing the number of community drop-in and neighbourhood events and communicating these with customers via newsletters and social media. Increasing our visibility in the areas where we have homes provides a more personal and consistent service, and provides a convenient and accessible way for customers to get in touch.

This quarter RSP continued their review into Voids and Lettings, including a team visit to a series of void homes on our Sale West estate. The outcome and action plan from which will be shared in June.

The Customer Standards Group continued to review the performance information you find here, exploring themes and trends with senior managers.

Members of the Building Safety Group helped us to compile an information pack ahead of work beginning to remove the render from our three high-rise buildings in Haughton Green.

They provided key input on content and FAQs to include and the agenda of a community meeting we held for all residents in person and online.

We incorporated the group's feedback into the final versions of our Building Safety Resident Engagement Strategies for each of our five high-rise buildings.

You can read these here.

We gained customer insight and feedback on our service charge policy.

Our Customer Communications Group provided feedback about our January rent statement newsletter and our leasehold service charge brochure.

They also completed a survey helping us with social media content ideas for 2025.

Feedback and learnings from complaints was incorporated via our ongoing transformation projects centred on improving customer experience and our repairs improvement project.

This includes moving both teams to an  'area based' model to make our teams more visible and approachable in the neighbourhoods we serve. This is something we have heard through customer feedback via many different channels in recent months.

Our repairs team moved into this way of working this quarter, complementing the structure of how our neighbourhood colleagues are already set up.

This new way of working also helps our colleagues to develop stronger relationships and build up knowledge of the homes and customers in their area.

Aside from these two major transformation projects, complaints learning and actions this year have included:

• Introducing an anti-social behaviour checklist for our customer service team to help us capture as much information about the situation as possible at the first point of contact.
• Carrying out refresher training for planners who manage repairs and trades' diaries to ensure maximum efficiency - ultimately helping jobs to be completed more quickly for customers.
• A process change when inspector jobs are booked in which highlights the time required on a job - helping to ensure they have enough time to complete all the necessary steps. This reduces the risk of follow on appointments being needed and is therefore more efficient and convenient for customers.
• Sharing information with customers about the impact of adverse weather on our repairs service, which you can read here on our website. This helps customers understand what to expect in periods of extreme weather.
• Updating a procedure in the rents administration process to make it clearer and more transparent for customers.