Sheffield Homes Customer Satisfaction Levels On The Rise
Sheffield Homes reported much improved levels of customer satisfaction to its Board of Directors at their meeting on the 18th of September. Sheffield Homes is the housing management organisation in charge of managing over 40,000 Council properties on behalf of Sheffield City Council.
The members of the Board will be updated on the outcome of a Customer Satisfaction Survey which shows that customer satisfaction has improved in four our of five questions customers were asked about.
The survey showed that 79.2% of Sheffield Homes customers were either very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the overall service provided by Sheffield Homes. This is a 6% increase on last year and also puts Sheffield Homes in the top quarter of all Local Authority and ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation) landlords in the UK.
78% of tenants responded that they were ‘very satisfied’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with their neighbourhood as a place to live whilst almost 82% of respondents said that they were ‘very satisfied’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with their accommodation.
Customer satisfaction with Decent Homes work and repairs has also shown improvements. The overall satisfaction for Decent Homes work stands at 86% with over 90% of respondents showing satisfaction with both the attitude of the workers and the overall improvement to the home. 87% of those surveyed were happy with the overall quality of repair work carried out by Sheffield Homes contractors whilst 92% were pleased with the politeness of maintenance staff.
Significant improvements have been made in the area of customer service with 95% of customers rating the handling of their call by the Sheffield Homes Call Centres as ‘Good’ or ‘Excellent’ – a 15% improvement on figures from 2006. This is reflected also in results from the tenant ‘Mystery Shoppers’ used by the company to monitor service levels. 90% of mystery shoppers felt they were treated in a courteous way whilst 85% of mystery shoppers had their enquiry dealt with the first member of Sheffield Homes staff they spoke to.
Satisfaction with dealing with complaints about Anti-Social Behaviour has remained relatively consistent from 2006 at 78% satisfied with initial contact and 69% satisfied with the outcome, however responses from disabled and ethnic minority groups showed improvements on the 2006 figures.
The survey results showed some areas where Sheffield Homes can look to further improving performance. These include improving the information given to customers and improving the opportunities for tenants to participate, especially amongst younger tenants. The company will also be working with contractors to try to reduce the length of time that Decent Homes works takes to complete.
Sheffield Homes Chief Executive Peter Morton said; “The results of this survey show that many of our recent initiatives to improve customer satisfaction are working and that the hard work of Sheffield Homes staff is paying off. There is lots more for us to do however tenants can be sure that we are heading in the right direction”.
“Tenants are at the heart of everything we do at Sheffield Homes and we want more of them to be involved. Over the next few months we will be looking at ways to improve tenant involvement via our Community Engagement teams”.