October - December 2024
About these results
These satisfaction measures relate to tenants living in our low cost rented accommodation. If you're a shared owner, we'll publish our results annually due to the number of customers we survey.
YTD (Year to Date) means the time from the start of the financial year (April 1st 2024) to 31st December 2024.
We've been listening to your feedback and want to share what we've learned and how we're planning to improve.
What the results tell us
Between October - December 2024, 74.2% of you said you were satisfied with our service. This is a 0.1% increase from July – September, and is still above the 71% average for other landlords, as reported by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) in their Tenant Satisfaction Measures Headline Report.
Clean and well maintained communal areas
We have seen a 3.5% increase in satisfaction with the cleanliness and maintenance of communal areas between October – December 2024. Whilst we usually see less dissatisfaction with grounds maintenance this time of year as the growing season is over, we know there is still room for improvement and we’re excited to begin this journey with our new contractors.
Our new cleaning and grounds maintenance contracts started on April 1st, 2025. We are pleased to announce New Green as our cleaning service provider and Groundscapes as our grounds maintenance provider. Working with Thrive Customer Voice members, we undertook a competitive tender process throughout 2024 to find the best providers and value for money and we’ll be reaching out to those who receive these services to see how you’re finding them over the coming months.
Learn more about how customer feedback has shaped our new cleaning and grounds maintenance services at: thrivehomes.org.uk/cleaning-gm-activity
We’ll continue to work closely with both providers in the coming months to maintain service standards through regular site visits, and you can also provide further feedback anytime at: thrivehomes.org.uk/feedback
Repairs
Since April 2024, your satisfaction with our repairs services has improved consistently. Most recently we saw a 1.4% increase in your satisfaction with our overall repairs service and a 3.6% increase in the time taken to complete a repair between October – December.
From July to September 2024, we focused on completing repairs on the first visit, reducing follow-up visits by 40%, which led to better satisfaction results from October to December.
Since December, our repairs volumes have increased. This is due to identifying repairs during HomePlan visits, changes we’ve made to the way we treat damp and mould problems, the usual rise in winter repairs, and team sickness. These challenges have sometimes caused delays and meant we’ve had to complete some repairs over multiple visits. To address this, we’ve brought in extra help from our contractor to take on some of the repairs, sent you appointment reminders. We’re also working to make other improvements, including:
- Upgrading our systems to make it easier to view updates from our contractors and so we can better assist you with repairs and maintenance visits.
- Daily job updates from contractors so we have a better understanding of the status of any works and make sure contractors are meeting our requirements. We have introduced this with one of our contractors already.
- Planning to send text messages with helpful links to information or guidance so you can confidently diagnose issues and carry out self-repairs when needed.
- New email and text reminders for repair appointments to keep you better informed.
- Working with our contractors to ensure they meet the service standards.
- Creating ways for our colleagues to access information that can better support your needs. This includes making reasonable adjustments such as allowing extra time to open the door for those with low mobility, to ensure our services are inclusive.
Our approach to complaint handling
There has been a 6.8% drop in how positively our approach to complaints handling is viewed between October – December, although our performance remains above the RSH average of 35%, with a current score of 37.5%.
In response to this, we have been carrying out refresher training with our colleagues on recognising what is considered a complaint to make sure these are logged. This has resulted in more complaints being raised. Although we have seen a drop in how positively customers view our approach to complaints handling, we have received positive feedback about our complaints team. We will also soon be working with Thrive Customer Voice members to review how we write to you about complaints.
Find out more at: thrivehomes.org.uk/get-involved
Our approach to handling anti-social behaviour
There has been a 1.8% decrease in customer satisfaction with our approach to handling anti-social behavior (ASB) between October – December, although our performance remains above the RSH average of 57.8%, with a current score of 61%.
10.96% of ASB cases worked on have resulted in a complaint. This is likely because of changes in the Housing Ombudsman Complaints Handling Code and how it classifies complaints, coupled with moving to a dedicated complaints team who impartially review complaints on behalf of the business area.
We’re also continuing to make improvements to our homes to ensure they are safe, such as our door entry system project to upgrade some of these systems at flat blocks.
Thank you for your feedback. Our market research partner, IFF, calls a sample of our customers every month. It’s so important to hear about your experience, so please take part if you’re called!
We are always working to find solutions and you can read about the latest actions we are taking here.