Our performance Tenant Satisfaction Measures
Over 4,500 customers participated in our 2024 Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) perception survey. This survey helps us understand how customers feel about us as their landlord.
Thank you to all our customers who responded to the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) perception survey. We had over 4,500 responses, a 20% response rate, and really appreciate everyone who took the time to respond. You have provided us with valuable feedback about your perception and experience of GSA as your landlord.
The views of our customers are extremely important to us. We receive feedback through a variety of ways, including satisfaction surveys customers complete when they have received a direct service from us, complaints and compliments, listening events such as our customer roadshows and feedback from our Customer Panel. We are committed to use the TSM survey results together with all the feedback we receive, to help us to keep shaping and improving our services.
Since the creation of GSA, we have had to focus on several key areas of priority including building safety and compliance. Having made significant progress with this, we recognised there was a need to refresh our strategy and re-shape our organisation to ensure we refocused on our core purpose as a social landlord. This included making clear commitments on how we would improve our customer offer and invest in our existing homes. In 2023 we launched our new Simpler, Stronger, Better 2023-28 business strategy which sets out our objectives and the key programmes of work to enable us to deliver the commitments made in our strategy.
Over the past 12 months, since we launched our new strategy, we have been working to make the changes needed, we have recently published our Progress Check report which highlights the changes and improvements we have already made as well as what we still plan to do.
It has been positive during this period to see the much-improved levels of customer satisfaction from our transactional surveys. Whilst we recognise the TSM perception survey results do not reflect this same level of improvement, we will use all customer feedback to continue to deliver our strategy commitments, accelerate our focus on improving our customer experience and work together with our customers and colleagues to embed and sustain the change.
Below, you can read about our TSM perception survey results together with more information about what we have done and outcomes we have achieved so far and importantly what we are still planning to do.
Our 2024 perception survey results
Overall
satisfaction
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied with our overall service
What we have done:
- We have delivered the commitments we made in year one of our new strategy, focusing on the areas that customers told us mattered the most to them. This has included improvements to our repairs and maintenance service, reducing the backlog of repairs, improving our response times and completing more jobs right first time.
- Customers told us that they were not always able to access our contact centre quickly enough and it took us too long to respond to emails. During 2023/24 we made some key changes to our customer contact centre to increase our responsiveness. During the year we handled over 220,000 calls and responded to almost 79,000 emails and over 80% of customers who used the contact centre told us they were satisfied with the service they received.
- We have enhanced the role of our Customer Panel and have involved customers more proactively in our work. Our Customer Panel have been particularly engaged in work such as our repairs improvements, our complaint handling review and helping us re-shape our customer facing policies and procedures.
- Alongside our Customer Panel in 2023 we hosted customer roadshows across each of our localities. Our colleagues came together to respond to issues highlighted by our customers as well as to gain valuable feedback. We have since published a summary of the roadshows to share what our customers told us and how we have responded.
What we plan to do:
- We will work with our Customer Panel to develop more ways to further engage with our customers, to listen, respond, inform and actively involve them in the way we shape and deliver our services.
- We will implement new technology which will enable more customers to have access to self-service digital solutions through an enhanced customer portal which will offer more ways to contact us when needed. This will also enable our contact centre and all colleagues providing customer services to access a wider range of information more efficiently meaning we can resolve more customer requests at the first point of contact.
- We will improve the quality of data we hold about our customers to enable us to make further improvements to enhance our customer experience. This includes gaining a better understanding of the diverse needs or vulnerabilities of customers and households enabling us to respond to these more effectively in the way we deliver our services.
- We will undertake a review of our locality model including the potential to develop community-based hubs. This is part of our commitment to ensure we have a visible presence in our localities, a responsive local offer to our customers and work together with our partners to positively contribute to our communities.
- We will strengthen our customer service to improve experience. This will include further customer care training to customer facing colleagues and creating local customer care champions within our teams.
Repairs and
maintenance
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied with our overall repairs service
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied with the time taken to complete their most recent repair
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied that their home is safe
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied that their home is well maintained
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied that we keep their communal areas clean and well maintained
What we have done:
- We recognised that our repairs service needed to improve. Although customers told us the quality of the repairs we delivered had improved, they told us we weren't always getting it right first time and the time it sometimes took us to respond was too long.
- We committed to make the improvements needed and in the last 12 months we reduced the average time it took us to respond to a repair from 66 days to 20 days. During this time, we also worked with our operatives and contractors to improve the rate at which we could resolve a repair first time, improving this from 80% to 90%.
- We brought all our heating services in-house this year. This means that we are consistently and directly providing heating and hot water services to customers across all our localities making our services more efficient whilst also improving the quality delivered. Customers have already told us this is making a positive difference.
- We have worked with our customers on safety campaigns, for example a fire safety campaign with customers in shared buildings and a campaign to ensure a safe approach to clear communal areas.
- We have created a new team of Healthy Homes Advisors who focus on supporting our customers wellbeing and advise on how to prevent and manage damp and mould issues in their homes.
- We have used our stock condition surveys to create a programme of investment in our existing homes. We delivered year one of the programme in 2023 investing in our customers and their homes.
- We bid alongside partners to the Government Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and match funded the grant, to enable us to significantly improve homes to ensure they are warmer, more energy efficient and more affordable for our customers.
- We have built hundreds of new high-quality homes in our communities.
What we plan to do:
- We will continue to improve our repairs and maintenance service as we know how important this is to our customers.
- We will continue to deliver the capital investment programme in our homes and scale up the amount of investment each year.
- We will move to the next phase of our project to make our homes warmer, more energy efficient and affordable and bring them up to a minimum rating of EPC C.
- We will create service standards to ensure customers are clear on the services we deliver and the standard they can expect.
- Through our community investment fund and our collaboration with partners we will invest in our communities, improving the neighbourhood environment for our customers.
Customer
engagement
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied that we listen to their views and act upon them
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied that we keep them informed about things that matter to them
Proportion of respondents who agree that we treat them fairly and with respect
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied that we make a positive contribution to their neighbourhood
What we have done:
- We have created a customer section of our webpage to provide our customers with information, including the publication of a monthly infographic to show how we are performing against key areas of service delivery. This includes the performance of our Contact Centre, repairs service and the resolution of complaints.
- We undertake transactional satisfaction surveys so that we can gain valuable feedback after we have delivered a service, for example carried out a repair. This has enabled us to monitor satisfaction to ensure the improvements we are delivering are making a real difference to our customers. The surveys also provide valuable feedback so we can act on any changes needed.
- In 2023 we asked customers who received a service from our estates team to provide us with more detailed feedback and we used this to make key changes in the way we delivered our service. As a result, we have started to see a positive increase in satisfaction levels and will undertake the same detailed feedback exercise in 2024.
- We launched our Tenancy Sustainment Fund which supports customers experiencing financial difficulties and at potential risk of losing their home. This year 280 households have benefited from our Tenancy Sustainment Fund. This is in addition to the financial and skills support we provide to our customers.
What we plan to do:
- We will continue to empower and support our colleagues to be able to respond effectively to our customers. Through our leadership development programme and our wider training and development offer, we will actively promote our GSA Way commitment to ensure our customer is everything.
- Working with our Customer Panel, we will increase communication with our customers to ensure we are keeping them informed of the key work we are undertaking such as our strategy commitments and how we are progressing.
- As well as continuing to publish our monthly infographic we will develop other ways to ensure we keep customers informed about how we are delivering against our key performance indicators.
- We will continue with our Tenancy Sustainment Fund and look at ways to expand the way we use this to support the customers in our communities who need it most.
- We are planning more locality roadshows in 2024 and will use these as a further opportunity to resolve local issues, gain valuable feedback as well as better understand how we can make further improvements for our customers.
- We will build on our locality model to increase our local presence and through partnership working increase our positive contribution to our communities.
Complaints handling
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied with our approach to complaints handling
What we have done:
- During 2023/4 we have had a sustained focus on understanding the root causes of our complaints and determinations and are taking action to address these. We have recognised and acknowledged there are areas where we have got things wrong or could have done better.
- We recognised our complaint procedure we were following during 2023/4 was not working in the way we intended. We have now revised our processes and introduced new ways of working to help resolve complaints for our customers more effectively. This includes supporting our vulnerable customers, making reasonable adjustments and improving our customer contact service standard.
- We are committed to learning from complaints and have several established ways of doing this. These include sharing outcomes and actions with colleagues, using a complaints dashboard to identify root causes and capturing quarterly learning updates and service improvements.
- We have aligned the structure of our Customer Care Team and increased resourcing in the team so that we can respond to complaints more quickly. We now have a dedicated team within our contact centre to resolve less complex complaints within five working days.
What we plan to do:
- We will continue to make improvements both to our complaints handling processes and the root-cause issues which contribute to our complaint volumes.
- We have implemented a high volume of service improvement activity over the last year, and we are committed to ensuring these changes are fully embedded and consistently applied to ensure a step change in our customer experience.
- We will continue to ask customers what they think of our services and share this with colleagues, to ensure we can continue to positively respond to our customer feedback and help shape our services.
Anti-social behaviour
Proportion of respondents who are satisfied with our approach to handling anti-social behaviour
What we have done:
- We have updated our Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) Policy and Procedure which is now being implemented by all localities. This has involved training frontline housing colleagues on anti-social behaviour case management, reinforcing our early intervention approach to tackling ASB.
What we plan to do:
- We will continue to use Starter Tenancies to support first time customers to manage their tenancy successfully.
- We will be extending our offer of how customers can report ASB to us by introducing React Remote which provides customers with direct access to us so they can provide real time updates on nuisance they have experienced allowing a swifter response to resolve this.
Management information
As well as reporting on our perception survey results, we are also required to report on our management information for the below areas. The data covers the period from April 2023 to March 2024.
Building
safety
Proportion
of homes with gas safety checks
Proportion
of homes with fire risk assessments
Proportion
of homes with asbestos management surveys
Proportion
of homes with legionella risk assessments
Proportion
of homes with communal lift safety checks
Decent Homes
Standard and repairs
Proportion
of homes that do not meet the Decent Homes Standard
Proportion
of non-emergency responsive repairs completed within our target
timescale
Proportion
of emergency responsive repairs completed within our target
timescale
Anti-social
behaviour
16.2
Number of anti-social behaviour cases opened per 1,000 homes
0.3
Number of anti-social behaviour cases that involve hate incidents per 1,000 homes
Complaints
Number of stage one complaints received per 1,000 homes
Number of stage two complaints received per 1,000 homes
Proportion of stage one complaints responded to within the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code timescales
Proportion of stage two complaints responded to within the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code timescales
Summary of approach
Our summary of approach page explains how we carried out our customer perception survey and calculated the results.
