The Regulator of Social Housing published its Tenant Satisfaction Measures 2023/24 Headline report earlier this week. It tells us that “Nearly half a million tenant perception surveys were completed by landlords in order to generate TSMs”. That’s a lot of data, a lot of knowledge which we in the social housing sector should be gleefully digging in to, to learn what tenants are telling us, and what we can do to make a real difference for them.
The report's Executive Summary states:
“Seven in ten tenants in low cost rental accommodation (LCRA) surveyed are satisfied with the overall service from their landlord.”
Should we be delighted with that, or should it make us think that three in ten tenants are not? Why are they not satisfied and what can we do about it?
Complaints...
It’s easy to look at the low scores and feel that the answer lies there. Complaints leaps out – only a third of respondents “are satisfied with their landlord’s approach to complaints handling”.
To put this into context, this question is only asked of those who have made a complaint (120,000 or so... about a quarter of respondents)
Are they likely to give a low score here if they didn’t get the outcome they wished for, even if their landlord dealt with them quite fairly? Possibly. To find out we should look at our approach to complaints handling and ask ourselves do they have a point?
Complaints should be taken seriously and responded to quickly – we all know this, it’s not rocket science. Are we handling complaints well, are we handling complaints quickly, are we keeping tenants in the loop regarding their case’s progress and outcome.
The secondary question is why is it that one in every 4 customers is having to raise a complaint in the first place? Perhaps the source of complaints needs more attention to reduce this volume overall. From the management information, it would suggest that stage one complaints account for just 6% of the tenant population - so why is there such a difference from the tenant's perspective?
Communication...
This leads on to a less obvious area – Communication. Communication is a two way street – listening to tenants as well as sharing information with them. The report tells us
3 out of 10 respondents are not satisfied “that their landlord keeps them informed about things that matter to them” and 4 out of 10 respondents are not satisfied “that their landlord listens to tenant views and acts upon them”.
A "You said / We did" approach would help here. Firstly we need to hear what our tenants are telling us. Importantly, do they know how to contact us – can they call us (what’s the number?), can they email us (what’s the address?), can they reach out online (what’s the URL?), can they visit us (where, what are the opening times?). Once we know what the issues are then we can put together an action plan to address them. And once we have fixed the problem(s), we need to shout out about it. Send loud and clear messages about the wonderful things we’ve done through websites, newsletters, tenant meetings. To do this, we need to understand who are tenants are, how they communicate with us, and what language/medium to use to present the work we are doing that caters to their requirements.
The highest score coming out of the TSMs is for TP08 where three quarters of respondents “report that their landlord treats them fairly and with respect” which is heartening and would likely be higher if we keep on top of Repairs and ASB, review our approach to Complaints and Communication. I would recommend undertaking Key Driver Analysis to look deeper into your individual Tenant Perception scores to identify which have the greatest impact on the overall satisfaction score. Addressing these could really drive up TP01 reflecting the service which we provide to our tenants.
Please note – the commentary above is based on scores for LCRA only, largely for readability. Scores for Low cost home ownership accommodation (LCHO) are lower for all Tenant Perception Measures reported – only half of respondents report “that they are satisfied with the overall service from their landlord” for example. The same thoughts apply for LCHO, except scores are in the region of 18% lower across the board.
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