Tenants help to improve repairs service

The Tenant Repairs Panel plays a crucial role in providing us with valuable customer feedback and suggestions about how we can adapt the service to better meet your needs.

The tenants who volunteer to sit on this Panel meet bi-monthly to scrutinise all aspects of the service – from how we buy materials and procure contractors to the way we handle your requests and organise repair jobs.

Thanks to their comments and ideas we have implemented some major changes to the service that will directly benefit customers. Members of the Tenants Repairs Panel have:

• Suggested changes for the “moving-in” standards to improve the experience for new tenants moving into their homes
• Helped to improve the online repairs reporting form to make it more customer friendly and easier to use
• Reviewed the performance figures for repairs and, where appropriate, challenged managers to improve

Recently, members of the Panel visited our Contact Centre to find out more about how staff deal with repair requests and to discuss their own experiences of ringing the service. Rebecca from the Tenant Repairs Panel said: “It was really interesting to get a picture of what goes on at the other end of a phone call. The call handlers are very good at offering additional support if they think the tenant sounds vulnerable and they have enormous patience and empathy and couldn’t have done enough for the customers on the phone.”

Members of the Panel also get involved in going behind the scenes to find out how we maintain a quality service despite recent issues such as Covid and the Suez Canal incident that impacted on the supply chain of materials.

They also see how we work with our partner Travis Perkins to ensure the materials we use are as sustainable as possible and are kept informed throughout the process to procure new partners to supply us with materials ranging from boilers and showers to fire doors and windows. As the number of repair jobs and large-scale project work increases following the return to normal after the pandemic, the material spend for this year is anticipated to be around £8.5 million, so it is essential that this contract offers quality and value for money.

If you would like to join the Tenant Repairs Panel or get involved with any of our tenant engagement groups please get in touch to find out more.