Housing complaints performance and service improvement annual report 2023/2024
Section 6 - Improving complaint handling performance and customer experience
Service redesign - complaint handling repairs and maintenance
To identify barriers to performance and propose solutions, a discovery project was undertaken. This review specifically focused on complaint handling within repairs and maintenance as this service receives and responds to the largest number of complaints and therefore has the biggest impact on performance.
Customer scrutiny review - stage 1 response letters
In response to evidence that shows low levels of satisfaction with the council's approach to dealing with housing complaints, the Resident Influence Panel commissioned a scrutiny review of stage 1 complaint responses across all Housing services. The aim of the review was to scrutinise the standard of stage 1 complaint responses and recommend actions that will improve the customer experience.
Both reviews are now complete, and we are introducing changes to the way we manage complaints to reflect their findings and recommendations.
Online complaint reporting
To refine our approach to handling housing related complaints, enquiries, and compliments submitted online a redesign exercise was undertaken. A survey of customers who had recently used the online service was undertaken and this was followed up with telephone conversations to explore responses in more depth. Insight provided from this customer engagement included:
- the absence of updates following submission
- difficulty in speaking directly to the appropriate person or department
- challenges in locating forms on the website
- confusion about the process
- unclear support options
In response we have introduced the following enhancements:
- a new, user-friendly digital form that consolidates all contact types into one accessible format to include a save and resume feature
- updated web pages to clearly outline the process and expected timelines
- enabling customers to specify their preferred contact methods and timings
- refine the form categories to ensure direct routing to the correct service team from the initial contact
- implement automatic email confirmations upon submission
We will monitor the impact of these changes and carry out further customer engagement to improve the online experience further.