Tenant Satisfaction Measure 07: How satisfied or dissatisfied are you that Great Places keeps you informed about things that matter to you?
We know how important good communication is with our customers. It’s key to building strong connections and ensuring we are being transparent and accountable to the people living in our homes and communities.
We share information and updates directly with you in lots of different ways. We want to make sure information is easy to find, so we share it online, in person and sometimes in print. We use our website, social media, our MyPlace customer portal, chatbot, regular e-News bulletins, and printed magazines and leaflets to communicate with you. Our web pages can be translated into different languages, and we offer translations for in-person talks and printed materials when needed.
After we send out our e-News bulletins and customer magazines, we ask you for feedback through surveys. We look closely at what you say and make changes based on what you tell us.
In 2022, our customer scrutiny group, Insight, looked in-depth at how we communicate with you. They worked with you to figure out how we can share information in a way that makes sense. You said that you really want us to share performance information regularly so you know how we are doing as a business, including how we are spending money. You want clear and complete information, and you’d like to see visuals that show trends and explain challenges we face and how we are tackling them.
You can check out the full report and recommendations in a video, but to sum it up, you said we should:
In addition to the general communication review, Insight also looked specifically at how we talk about damp, mould, and condensation, since it’s become such a high-profile issue this year.
The group was impressed with how much we have done to raise awareness about this issue with you and with our colleagues. You shared really useful feedback for new content in both print and digital formats and we have made an action plan based on this, with the help of our Digital Readers’ Group. You can find the main takeaways and recommendations in the video.
Thanks to your feedback, we have made changes to our communications to make sure we are telling you about our performance in all the areas you told us are important. Along with our regular updates, we have put all this information together on the new ‘Performance Information for Customers’ section of our website.
We have also stepped up our internal communications so that our colleagues who talk to you know the messages and processes well and can offer you accurate advice. We have given them personalized home pages on our internal network and introduced a new podcast app so they can stay up-to-date even on the go.
We know not everyone uses digital, so in January 2023 we started giving out customer z-cards when we come to your home for an appointment. These are little leaflets with important information that change every few months. Our colleagues, from Repairs to Neighbourhood Services Managers, hand these to you when they visit you. They can be translated into different languages and have QR codes that link to videos and key information on the website.
In the first half of 2023, we handed out 20,000 z-cards. We’ll keep asking for your feedback and working with you to make sure the messages are clear and easy to understand.
We have recently launched our Digital Readers’ Group to help us make our customer newsletters, other communications, and website even better. They’re reviewing how we write and layout content so we can improve how we communicate with you. The group is already working on their first task – reviewing our guide to managing moisture in your home.
We’d love for you to get involved so let us know if you’re interested!
