Listening to you
At settle, we want to be the best landlord we can be. We’re committed to improving the services we offer and listening to residents is central to this. We will always listen to what we hear and act on it, to make sure we get things right. We hear feedback in lots of different ways, including through our Big Door Knock, surveys and focus groups. Last year we heard from over 4,800 customers this way.
We have included a separate 'Learning from complaints' section in this report to provide more details on the complaints we received last year and what we learnt from them.
Our Big Door Knock
Several times a year colleagues from teams across settle, including our Executive Team and members of our Board, contact residents in different locations to ask for feedback on how we’re doing – what’s working well and what we can get better at. We adapted how we did this during the past year, calling this our ‘Big Check In’. settle colleagues contacted residents by phone or in socially distanced visits in person, in line with government guidance during lockdowns on travel and meeting in person. Now that restrictions have eased, we have returned to making these visits in person, in line with all distancing and safety measures. Whether on the phone or in person, nothing beats meeting residents and talking to you about how you feel about settle. During the year 2020/21 settle colleagues met or spoke to nearly 1,700 customers in this way. As a direct result we increased investment into our communal spaces as well as making changes to the way in which we manage repairs. But we know that there is more to do, and we will continue to work on all areas we can get better at. In other parts of this report, we have included details of priorities we are continuing to work on, including our repairs recovery plan to provide repairs more quickly and increasing investment in homes, making sure we keep residents updated on what we are doing.
Surveys
We also send out more detailed surveys to ask how we’re doing in general and to get feedback on specific subjects. Twice a year the Institute for Customer Services contacts several hundred residents to understand the level of customer satisfaction and trust you feel in settle. We also run surveys on some of our key services to understand how we are doing in the moment. At the completion of letting a home, repair, complaint and contact with our Customer Service Centre, residents are given the choice to complete a survey and let us know how we did. We use these results to understand how we are performing, make any escalations for further support and improve our services based on the feedback we’ve received. We also run focus groups and interviews throughout the year to test new ideas, ask questions and understand what matters to our communities. Last year these focused around what support residents needed during the different lockdowns and helped us plan the services we provided during this time.
Resident engagement panel
During the last year we also began work on a new way to hear from residents, through our resident engagement panel. We have contacted residents from June this year with details of how to get involved in this way. Our engagement panel provides lots of different ways for residents to give your views on a range of topics, through emails to meetings and discussion groups, opportunities that take a few minutes or some that might take a bit more of your time. Whether you have a few minutes or longer any involvement – virtually or in person – is really valued. During 2021/22, over 170 settle residents have already signed up to give feedback this way. Some of the ways residents have been involved in recent months includes taking part in group discussions to influence how we support residents in fuel poverty and reviewing our policies on income collection, neighbourhood management and how we help those experiencing domestic abuse.
Join our resident engagement panel
We’d love to hear from you. If you’d like to get involved please fill in our short form or call us. To show our appreciation for the time you spend with us, we’ll offer shopping vouchers that can be spent Iceland, Argos and many more stores.
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Our complaints panel
Our complaints panel is a forum to escalate complex cases, discuss themes and ensure settle teams are empowered to make changes based on feedback. We’re delighted that settle residents Annette, Liz and Maria have recently joined the panel. Hear more from them in this short video - including why they’ve joined the complaints panel and how they want to help settle residents to make sure they have a voice.