Listening to you

Customer engagement at Stonewater is all part of how we listen, learn and work with you to co-create solutions and deliver better customer experiences.

In 2022/23, we directly engaged with more than 5,000 customers, working with them to shape our services and gain a greater understanding of your needs and ensuring our customers are at the heart of our drive to improve services.

Here’s a quick look at how we’ve engaged with you in 2022-23:

Scrutiny Panel

The 14 members of our Scrutiny Panel volunteered more than 400 hours of their time to help shape our services in 2022-23, making 32 formal recommendations for changes across our business.

Undertaking in-depth reviews of critical areas such as contact and customer service and our anti-social behaviour offer, the panel have been able to use their unique skills and experience to help us understand service areas from a customer point of view.

The panel's review of contact and communications found five key areas for improvement, including creating clearer targets for reducing call wait times, making use of technology to improve the customer experience, following up with customers and reducing instances of missed appointments.

The group surveyed more than a thousand customers during this review, their largest ever customer engagement project, and used the data to make their recommendations.

The panel’s review of anti-social behaviour looked closely at areas such as communication, evaluating Stonewater’s guidance for the support we offer, the use of technology in helping to resolve issues and how we handle complex issues.

Over the twelve week review, the panel found several areas for improvement, and the group made 14 recommendations for improving our approach to ASB.

The panel have also been heavily involved in consultations and workshops for crucial projects involving the Neighbourhood Management Policy; the Pest Management Policy; the Community Volunteering Policy; the Vulnerable Person Policy; the Damp, Mould and Condensation Policy; Fire Safety information; MyHome, Rent Review and the Complaint Handling Code.

Take a look at the Scrutiny Panel's annual report here:

Surveys and insight

More than 1400 customers responded to our financial wellbeing survey, giving us a valuable insight on the issues you're facing and what kind of support you’d find most helpful.

At the end of the survey, customers shared their ideas for how we can extend our support. Ideas shared by customers included partnering with community groups and food banks, promoting our offer more widely to reach people who may not know about it, helping customers with the energy efficiency of their homes and looking at what support we can offer people who work, but have a low income.

We used the results of the survey to improve and promote our “Help with Money” guidance which you can find on our website.

Customer feedback

We’ve also received more than 23,000 Rant & Rave surveys, telling us exactly how we’re performing when we speak to you about an issue you’re having or when a repair is completed.

In 2022-23, we had an overall satisfaction score of 83.6%

Customer influencing groups

Our customer groups have helped us to gain vitally important information and insight so that we can shape services in important areas across Stonewater.

Our Ageing Well Board and Network, a group of 37 customers that look at all of our services from the perspective of over-55s, and tell us how we can improve them. In the last year they’ve been looking at issues across themes such as housing that supports ageing well, connecting people to reduce loneliness and exploring digital inclusion.

Our Customer Complaints Panel supports customers who want an independent review of their complaint from a customers’ perspective, making sure that we’ve followed our processes correctly and done everything we can when something has gone wrong. In 2022-23, the Customer Complaints Panel reviewed 11 cases and made 37 recommendations to put things right and prevent the same issues from happening again.

We also support an online network of inclusion groups focused on sight impairment; hearing impairment; neurodiversity and mobility issues.

These online groups are a way for customers with lived experience of a disability, whether that is having a disability themselves or caring for someone with a disability, the chance to influence the way we do things.

The groups have given feedback on several projects over 2022/23, including improvements to our fire safety information and reviewing our new aids and adaptations guide.

In the community

We’ve delivered a full programme of customer consultation events over the last twelve months, and more than 200 customers have joined us to provide feedback about the issues which most matter to them. These have included key areas such as our responsive repairs service, our complaint policy and our sustainability strategy.

We’ve also delivered 64 face-to-face consultations in our Retirement Living schemes to make sure our customers could have their say on how we should approach the issues in their scheme and local community, most notably how we can manage the rising cost of communal energy. We also run regular consultation events seeking direct feedback from customers in communities about issues like parking, garden projects and anti-social behaviour to make sure our community and neighbourhood work is customer-focused at all times.

Community Champions

Our brilliant team of Community Champions has been working with us throughout the year to help us spot and address issues where they live.

These volunteers act as our eyes and ears in the community, telling us about the quality of our cleaning and grounds maintenance work, reporting anti-social behaviour, parking and more.

In the past year, our Community Champions submitted 22 community investment ideas to help improve where they live for their neighbours.

Some of their recommendations have included installing more dog waste bins, better lighting to combat anti-social behaviour, new cigarette bins, new trip rail fencing, fresh white line painting for car parks, and new flowers to help brighten up communal areas.

You can find out more about our Community Champions here.

Online communities

More than 1,000 customers are members of our Customer Hubb (Help Us Be Better) online community – a place where our customers can come together to ask questions, feedback about our services, have conversations, share information, discuss hobbies and post pictures.

We also have an active Facebook community, and in 2022/23, we hosted four Live and Direct events on issues affecting our customers such as money advice, energy bills, rent and service charges and the support that’s available through our charity partners. Around 400 customers joined us for these events, either on the day or by watching it back.