Customer Voice making a difference
Grounds Maintenance Update
Over the last few months, we have been asking customers for their views on our Grounds Maintenance Service which includes grass cutting, maintaining hedges and shrubs, weeding and keeping the area clean and tidy around your home and neighbourhood.
Customers told us that the following areas were important, and they wanted us to:
- Deliver a consistent, good quality service
- Leave the area looking clean and tidy
- When something goes wrong put it right
- Ensure our colleagues are polite and respectful
- Complete all the tasks in one visit
- Deliver a service that offers value for money
So, we’ve listened and acted upon your feedback and in November we brought the Grounds Maintenance contract in-house. That means that the operatives now out and about delivering the Grounds Maintenance Service in your neighbourhoods will be Great Places colleagues. There’s more information on this on page 11.
The service is looking to recruit customers to be our eyes and ears and help us to make sure we are delivering a consistently great service across all our neighbourhoods and communities. If you are interested to find out more then please get in touch with our Involvement Team at Involvement.team@greatplaces.org.uk
Keeping you safe in your home
Depending on the type of home you live in, Great Places will do a number of checks in your home to make sure that it is as safe as possible. This might mean checking your boiler as part of a gas safety check each year, checking whether there is asbestos in your home before you have repairs done, or checking and maintaining the fire safety equipment in your communal areas if you live in a flat.
Earlier this year Great Places approached customers who had recently received these services, and more, to find out what is important when we come to check that your home is safe. Hundreds of customers replied to tell us what is important to them. Thank you to everyone who gave us their feedback.
The main reason for asking you about these services is that we will soon be arranging new contracts for gas testing and maintenance, electrical testing, asbestos testing and removal, lift safety and maintenance, and fire risk assessments and safety equipment. We have used what you told us and built this into the promises that organisations who want to provide these services to you, will need to agree to. We’ll also use the information you gave us to help us to make sure that our contractors and partners are delivering the services in the way they promised. Watch out for more information soon about which contractors will be working in your home and the services that they will provide.
New Customer Voice Strategy
Earlier this year we consulted with customers to find out what was important when we engage with you. This involved sending customers surveys and speaking with you during customer calls and virtual meetings.
As a result of your feedback, we have now created our Customer Voice Strategy with clear aims and objectives. The aims of this strategy are to understand our customers, and who they are, so we can tailor our services and to make sure that the voice of the customer is heard and helps shape service delivery.
We want to also understand our customers and their preferred ways of communication and how they want to engage with us, making sure there are opportunities for customer scrutiny. Embracing technology and offering a digital solution is important to us, along with keeping customers informed on the impact of their voice.
Over the coming months we will be working with customers to bring this document to life to help shape and deliver meaningful and flexible ways to engage with our customers and respond in the right way to what you are telling us about Great Places and the services we deliver.
We need customers to get involved
Great Places is looking to recruit customers to help us with our new customer portal and website. We know that lots of customers prefer to go online and we want to make sure our online services work for you.
Customers have already helped us with our Chatbot development, but we want to work with you to develop our online offer and make sure it works for you. You can do this from the comfort of your own home, and it will be easy to do.
Editorial Group
Great Places sends lots of communication to customers and with this in mind we would really like to engage with customers who are interested in helping us design communication that works for you.
Some recent examples of listening to your feedback include working with our Service Charge Team to re-design our letters to customers for next year and a proactive campaign about damp and mould. Your feedback is important so if you would be interested let us know. We would love to have a community of customers that can help make sure we are getting things right.
