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How surveys are used to improve services

There are a number of smart ways you can use your housing survey to improve services.

 

Shirley Corcoran, Customer Involvement Manager of Halton Housing Trust in Cheshire, carried out a STATUS report quarterly. “We stopped carrying out the specific repairs survey, and added additional repair questions to STATUS along with questions to gather performance data about our Customer Top 10 Service Standards,” she says. “This has cut down on the number of surveys that our customers receive.”

Work is currently underway to capture ‘informal’ complaints about the service.

The Trust has also developed a four-stage customer satisfaction feedback framework:

  • Develop a baseline assessment each year following completion of Quarter 2 of the STATUS survey
  • Identify reasons for areas of low satisfaction and invite suggestions for improvement
  • The Service Improvement Team uses the findings to draw up improvement plans
  • Implementation, monitoring and feedback arrangements.

» One of the ways Halton Housing communicate results to tenants

Traffic light system shows the way

Walsall Housing Group, also uses survey results to improve services and maintain good customer relationships.

  • Step 1 - Actions plans are formulated, using the RAG (Red, Amber, Green) traffic light system, highlighting all areas for improvement.
  • Step 2 - Areas for improvement are identified by the relevant service managers and then fed into future service improvement plans.
  • Step 3 - Where appropriate, customers are informed of the influence they have had on the service area through customer newsletters and customer panel groups.

Link your survey to action plans

“It’s a wise move to use your satisfaction results as measures in action plans, service standards, or as performance indicators,” says Charlie Teare at Aster Group adds:

“Make sure that your KPIs have a focus on satisfaction, use the results to measure the impact of change, and analyse survey results to establish residents’ priorities. You may assume that you know what’s most important to residents. Use your survey to find out whether your assumptions match up to reality.”

Did you know?

With Snap Surveys, you can set up a trigger so that if a tenant mentions a maintenance problem in a survey, the complaint goes straight to your maintenance team so they can follow up.