Learning from your complaints
In 2022-23, we handled more than 2,500 complaints about our services, a 40% rise in total complaints, and we had to work hard to make sure that we were not only doing everything we could to resolve them, but also learning from them.
Due to this extra demand on our services (much like other housing associations across the country), it's been a challenging year for handling your complaints, but thanks to your feedback, we are making strides towards improving our services.
Here’s a look at our complaints service during 2022-23:
Repairs
64% of our complaints were about repairs. We understand how frustrating it can be when you tell us that you need something fixing, and something goes wrong or you have to wait longer than usual for someone to attend.
Just like a lot of other housing associations, we've been facing some big challenges in delivering our repairs service. Labour and materials shortages are creating of backlog of some jobs, and this can often lead to complaints.
You told us that when this happens, it makes a big difference when we keep you updated. We know it can be frustrating when it feels like we're not doing what we say we will in our complaint responses, and we wanted to find a better way of making sure we fully understood your complaint and how it could be put right. Working with our contractors and across our teams, we’ve developed a new commitments tracker which helps give better visibility to our promised actions in resolving your complaints properly.
You said; we did
You also told us that communication could be improved around temporary heaters so that if you need to use one, you can understand how to claim compensation for running them. We've reviewed our policy on temporary heaters to make sure that it's easier to understand and that customers know how they can claim.
Staff training
During 2022-23, we’ve trained colleagues throughout Stonewater in complaint handling, focusing on the importance we place on getting this right so we can improve services across the board.
We’ve also started to roll this out to our contractors, so that they understand their role in providing services, and how they can support the customer complaints process.
Service charges
We fully understand that during the cost-of-living crisis, every penny we spend is important.
One of the key themes we got from customer complaints about service charges, was that we could be clearer on what they are and why we charge them.
Our guide to rent and service charges has been created to help customers understand more about the service charges we collect, as well as how we can support customers who might need some help with their finances.
Our Energy Hub also contains support and guidance for customers who have been impacted by the increased price of gas and electricity in the past year.
Customer Complaints Panel
Our Customer Complaints Panel, created in 2020, successfully reviewed 11 cases in 2022-23.
The team, made up of an independent group of Stonewater customers, can offer its unique perspective on complaints and support customers when they’re not happy with the way we’ve handled their complaint.
Management Moves
Some of the complaints we had relating to management moves (when customers cirumstances mean they have to move from one Stonewater home to another and they’re not re-applying for housing or swapping their home), told us that some customers found the process frustrating.
To help us tackle this, our new re-housing panel was established in 2022-23, and its job is to consider each management move request individually. The panel is made up of people from across Stonewater, ensuring a clear and consistent approach to managment moves.
Equality, diversity and inclusion review
So that we can understand more about our customers, in 2022-23 we conducted a full review of our complaints by equality, diversity and inclusion characteristics.
On the back of this we have adapted our training to make sure that our colleagues are aware of the individual challenges that our customers might face and how this can have an impact on the services they receive.
We have also translated our customer complaints guide into several languages to make it accessible for more customers whose first language may not be English.
Complaints handling code
Social Landlords like Stonewater have been asked by the Housing Ombudsman to carry out an annual assessment to show that they’re fulfilling all of the requirements set out in the Complaints Handling Code. We always publish our assessment on our website, and you can find our most recent one here.