Putting residents at the heart of our business – listening to them and taking action to deliver the type of service they want from us.
Our priority this year: To create an excellent customer service culture throughout ccha.
Improving customer service
In 2019 we carried out a resident consultation which showed that customer service and communication were areas where residents felt we needed to improve. This has been our focus over the last year.
We have invested in upskilling staff with the necessary training, ensuring a consistent approach to customer care for our residents, partners and colleagues. Any new starters also do the training and all staff will complete a review every three years.
To improve our communication with residents we have shortened the time that residents have to wait for a call back when they make an enquiry. In March 2021, we implemented and achieved a two-day call back period with a goal of 95% of calls returned within this timeframe. We continue to monitor this target on a monthly basis to ensure it is being met.
As most of our staff are working remotely, we have made sure that all calls are transferred from office phones to work mobiles. When a resident calls us, we make it clear who will call them back and how long they can expect to wait.
Most residents have been in touch with us by email because our office has been closed, so we have made sure that staff contact details are clearly visible on all of our emails. For general email inboxes, we have included an auto-response to reassure residents that their email has been received while giving an estimated response time.
What our residents say
“I didn’t expect my landlord to call and check in on me, I appreciate that they have and that I know I can get support if I need it.”
Customer service standards
In the coming year, we hope to implement a customer service action plan, which includes creating service level agreements.
To help us do this, we will hold consultations with residents to get their views, expectations and ideas on what kind of service they want from us. Once this is complete, we will roll out our customer service standards and promote them to residents.
We have also brought in a new phone system to support staff working remotely. This will provide residents with a better service with more features, such as their place in the queue, more options for the department they wish to speak to and better reporting to help us identify where we need to improve.
Our customer service satisfaction data (April 2020 to March 2021) shows that:
71%
of residents were satisfied with services received from ccha (target 80%)
We are disappointed we did not meet our overall satisfaction target, and this will be our number one priority to tackle and improve in the coming year.
76%
of residents were satisfied with landlord actions to keep communal areas clean (target 75%)
72%
of residents said they were satisfied with the communal gardening service (target 70%)
We are really pleased we have been able to exceed our target following the start of new contractors and look forward to building on this in the coming year.
59%
of residents were satisfied that their landlord listens to their views and takes notice of them (target 75%)
With our plans to improve our customer service, we aim to improve the above figure and have already seen an improvement in the past few months.
79%
of residents were satisfied with our published information and engagement with them (target 80%)
The above survey question has been altered to capture ccha’s overall engagement with residents. We have already seen an increase in satisfaction over the past few months and hope this continues to grow.
In accordance with the Social Housing White Paper, we have also introduced new questions around neighbourhoods and health and safety for the coming year’s survey to gain better clarity on resident satisfaction in these areas. We will also be reviewing our Anti-Social Behaviour policy and procedure to see how we can successfully monitor resident satisfaction with our handling of cases. More information around this will be available in the next Annual Report.
Feedback from residents
Our monthly resident surveys have reiterated that we have further work to do with regards to customer service and communication. For example, being able to contact the right person and satisfaction with the way we handled your query did not reach the score we expected.
However, as a result of some of the changes we have implemented above, we have started to see an improvement in this area and will continue to work on this through our customer service action plan. We also share the monthly results with the teams so any comments from residents can be followed up.
What our residents say
“Dear ccha, I hope that you are all safe and well. Thank you for your continued support in keeping residents informed throughout the pandemic. I was supposed to send a compliment a few years ago but better late than never!”
Our customer service satisfaction data (April 2021) showed that:
84%
of residents said ccha were easy to deal with
88%
of residents said they were satisfied with our engagement with them
After lockdown when services returned, we were faced with a high workload which was disrupted by staff illness, the need for social distancing and self-isolation. During those six months after lockdown, we were working hard to return our services to normal – and we will continue to do that.