Customer Engagement
Our Conversation
From April 2021 to March 2022 our Customer Involvement team has engaged with 3736 customers via phone, email, text and using online forums!
Customer Communications Consultation
Last year we asked you how satisfied you were with the email content from Great Places and what is important when we send information. We had over 170 respondents and some of our headline findings include:
As a result of this feedback we have made sure:
- We have consistent news rather than too much or too little
- We now send out one eNews per month (apart from when our larger newsletter is sent out in April/May and September/October)
- This has increased our content as asked
- Each piece relevant to the majority of our customers
- Highlighting specific articles with geographical tags where relevant
- Including contact details with our communications and articles
We will continue to gather feedback and respond to it, providing information to you in the methods and manners you want.
Moving into your new home
Last year we contacted customers living in Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre to ask what was important to them when they bid, viewed and signed up for their new home.
We wanted to hear from customers about their experience of moving into their home to help us achieve positive changes to the service.
Customers told us they want Great Places to:
- make sure that my new home is clean and tidy
- tell me how to report repairs needed in my home
- tell me how to pay my rent
- tell me how I can contact my Neighbourhood Services Manager.
Using your feedback
We used what customers told us was important to them to make changes to the service across all of our regions. We have introduced a voids standard which details the standard and quality that all of our empty homes will meet.
We have also improved our inspection regime so every empty home gets fully inspected to ensure it meets the agreed new standard Importance Improving our services with you before it gets handed over as ready to let to our customers.
To check the changes we made had worked, we contacted customers living in the same areas, after our changes were made, to ask about their experience of moving into their new home.
What they told us showed that customer satisfaction had increased in all areas and that in 5 out of 10 areas we now meet and exceed customers’ expectations in the following: you could move in to your home when you expected to, agreed repairs were completed within timescales and that you know how to report repairs, pay your rent and contact your neighbourhood services manager.
We will continue to check with customers once they have moved into their new home to understand their experience and use their feedback to continue to improve the service.
Improving our phone service
At the start of April, Great Places merged its two contact centres to create one Customer Hub. When you call Great Places’ Customer Hub we ask you to press buttons on your phone to tell us what you would like to do, or what you would like to talk to us about. By pressing those buttons you are helping us to put you through as quickly as we can to the best person or service to help you. This helps us to deal with what you want to talk to us about in your first call.
The team in our Hub can help with most questions or problems, but sometimes customers don’t press a button. This means that it can take much longer to help those customers. During February, we asked customers in the weeks before to tell us which buttons they would press for a given list of situations.
Justine Carroll, Head of Customer Contact said: “I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who took part in the survey. Your feedback shows there is room for improvement and we need to make it clearer for our customers which option to choose. Your help has been invaluable.”
This was just the first part of this process and we’ll contact customers, including some customers who have already been involved, again in Summer to help us with the next stages of this consultation, so do please look out for this and help us improve your services.
Customer Complaints Community
We are asking customers to join our Customer Complaints Community to help improve our complaints process by providing feedback on how we deal with complaints and offer suggestions on how we can improve.
You’ll take part in:
- Reviewing closed complaints and provide feedback on how it was dealt with
- Providing ideas on how we can improve our response to complaints
- Offer support to Great Places colleagues
The complaints community (customers and colleagues) meets four times a year for one hour.
Why should I join the customer complaints community?
By joining the Customer Complaints Community, you will:
- Make positive improvements to how customer complaints are responded to
- Shape our complaints policy by suggesting improvements
If you’re interested, please contact us.
Customer Consultation- Adaptations
An adaptation is an addition or alteration in or around your home to allow you to live more independently, or to receive care in your home in a safe and secure environment for you and your carers.
Before we started rewriting our Adaptations Policy, we asked you to tell us what’s important should you need an adaptation to your home.
You told us you want Great Places to:
- complete adaptations work to your homes quickly and safely;
- provide information about adaptations that includes – what adaptations can be had, who to contact, and what happens if you’re not eligible for an adaptation
- be kept up to date on the progress of any adaptation works to your home.
Customers who had experienced our adaptation service were also asked how satisfied they are with the service and there are some gaps across each region.
The adaptation service is being reviewed and customer feedback will be central to rewriting our policy. We will also continue to check with customers once they have had an adaptation to their home to understand their experience and use their feedback to continue to improve the service.
To get involved, please contact our Community Engagement team at involvement.team@ greatplaces.org.uk
Customer Feedback review
April 2021 to 31 March 2022
In May last year Great Places following customer and colleague consultation introduced a new Customer Feedback policy.
This was as a result of customer feedback that Great Places needed a new approach and to make giving feedback more accessible. It also needed to ensure we met the requirements of the then new Housing Ombudsman code. This can be found on our website.
Great Places will continue to strive to provide an effective complaint handling process that puts the customer at the centre. We are also committed to learning and improving our services where we are not getting it right for our customers.
Learning from complaints
Home from home
Leaks can be caused by a number of factors including condition of roof, damage caused by weather, pipe leaks, drainage issues, solar panels, general wear and tear, some are the result of design features. They can have a devastating impact on customers and also lead to more extensive work and in some cases even replacement kitchens, bathrooms or flooring which may require a customer to have temporary accommodation while the works are completed.
Following recent customer feedback Great Places is reviewing its current decant policy and looking at working more closely with customers and their options if they need to move out of their home. This will often be a Travelodge or local B&B, which is ok for short term arrangements but if a customer is going to be out of their home for a longer period of time this type of accommodation can be challenging.
By listening to our customers, we are now looking at other options that include Airbnb which might be more suitable and offer a better home from home option if our customer needs to be out of their home for a period of time.
We would welcome customers views on our review. If you are interested in supporting our review then please contact our customer involvement team at Involvement.team@greatplaces.org.uk
Communicating with customers
Through customer feedback and complaints we have identified an increase in levels of dissatisfaction with repair appointments and communication around appointments and any changes to those appointments. We are working with our planning team and repair colleagues to review our ways of communicating changes to appointments with our customers. If you have any feedback or comments that will help our review please get in touch with the Involvement.team@greatplaces.org.uk