Customer Voices
Customer Voices is made up mainly of tenants, and is the voice of our customers.
believe housing created Customer Voices to help ensure that we are listening and responding to the voices of customers in our decision-making.
In fulfilling its responsibilities, Customer Voices ensures that the organisation’s core values to “Do the right thing: for our colleagues, for our customers, for our business” are intrinsic to everything we do and to hear the true voice of the customer gaining insight to drive the business forward.
Customer Voices is one part of our wider engagement programme which helps us to capture and listen to customer views and use these to shape and improve our services. If you are interested in finding out more about engagement, please get in touch.
- Monitoring and reviewing customer insights, ensuring customers have the chance to share feedback and influence improvements to our services.
- Analysing complaints trends.
- Assisting with the annual customer survey and analysing responses.
- Engaging with customers to feedback information regarding future plans and helping improve service delivery.
As well as getting together for scheduled meetings, Customer Voices members are also consulted on specific projects and attend working groups to progress scrutiny tasks, presenting findings and recommendations to the Board or the Performance and Standards Committee.
Members also receive training and briefings throughout the year to ensure they are well-informed, understand external events affecting believe housing and our customers, and support their role to scrutinise and challenge believe housing.
Customer Voices has reserved places for up to eight of our tenants/leaseholders. The remaining membership includes one staff member and one independent member. The Chair of Customer Voices is a tenant member.
For further information about Customer Voices, or to discuss joining the group please contact: governance@believehousing.co.uk
November 2021: Reviewed believe housing’s community hub provision
May 2022: Considered how Customer Voices communicate messages to the wider tenant base
June 2023: Reviewed the delivery of Neighbourhood services
2022/2023: Agreed a detailed workplan for scrutiny activities with the Performance and Standards Committee
Autumn 2023: Supported the development of believe housing’s Annual Report. annual reports | believe housing
November 2023: Customer Voices joined members of believe housing’s Assets Team at a product quality session hosted by contractor RE:GEN Group. Members reviewed the quality of kitchen and bathroom products and offered feedback on the range of doors and windows. They also visited recently completed external and environmental works undertaken on homes across central Durham and Blackhall.
December 2023: Supported reviews of the Electrical Safety Policy and the Gas, Solid Fuel Safety Policy.
Meeting updates
Here’s a summary of the business covered during the meeting:
Regulatory changes:
Members received an update on the regulatory changes flowing from the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 which effect on 1 April 2024.
Safety, Compliance and Insurance Report Q4 2023/24:
Members received the quarterly overview of believe housing’s work relating to health and safety, compliance and insurance, noting progress being made on key issues.
End of Year Performance 2023/24:
Customer Voices was provided with an overview of performance at the end of 2023/24, discussing the results and how performance information will be published on the website. During the discussion, members asked how long believe housing takes to respond to a stage one complaint and heard we aim to respond in 10 working days to allow a prompt resolution unless there is a specific reason that an extension is needed. The Ombudsman Code is 10 working days, which can be extended by a further 10.
Scrutiny Framework Review:
Members had recently completed scrutiny training delivered by tenant engagement experts TPAS, which they had all valued. This was followed by proposed changes to the Scrutiny Framework which members agreed would enhance the scrutiny model, simplify the process, and enable them to look at more issues in a year. They asked that the revised Framework be approved by the Performance and Standards Committee.
Ombudsman Self Assessment and Improvement Report:
Customer Voices reviewed documents to be published and submitted to the Housing Ombudsman, in line with the Complaints Handling Code.
Recharge Policy:
Customer Voices heard that face-to-face customer consultation was held in April 2024 before the Recharge Policy was updated. Members considered the changes, prior to approval by Performance and Standards Committee. During the discussion, members heard believe housing works with customers and considers individual circumstances to address issues of no access fairly and see if they need support.
Simple Done Right – Customer Immersion Update:
Customer Voices received a progress update from members of the Transformation Team about an ongoing Simple Done Right programme, which aims to streamline processes and enhance service delivery, and agreed to receive a further update at a future meeting.
The next meeting will be on 1 October, 2024.
The Customer Voices group met on 1 October, 2024.
Here’s a summary of the business covered during the meeting:
Scrutiny Framework and Future Topics:
Members noted a new enhanced Scrutiny Framework which was approved by the Board’s Performance and Standards Committee in September. This followed training and consultation with Customer Voices members and will be reviewed in 12 months’ time.
Members also discussed the topics they would like to scrutinise in 2025. This is an important part of the group’s work and see members of the panel examine an area of believe housing’s work and share their findings to inform decisions.
They agreed that the two areas of focus would be believe housing’s handling of antisocial behaviour (ASB) and how we pick up the vulnerability of customers, as work on both areas would directly benefit customers. They also felt the issues could be linked and will start with ASB and allow work to continue on a believe housing Customer Strategy which considers customer vulnerabilities.
If the group has capacity to cover another topic in the year, it plans to look at how we keep tenants informed about things that matter to them.
Safety, Compliance and Insurance Report Q1 2024/25:
Members received the quarterly overview of believe housing’s work relating to health and safety, compliance and insurance.
2024/25 Q1 Corporate Scorecard Performance:
Customer Voices discussed believe housing’s performance against key targets and Tenant Satisfaction Measures. Results are gathered throughout the year, feedback is analysed, and themes identified so any actions can be put in place as needed.
Annual Report:
Members reviewed the proposed 2023/24 Annual Report to Customers and agreed it should go to Board for approval. It will then be published on the website.
Service Standards Monitoring Report 2023/24:
A full review of performance against believe housing’s service standards for 2023/24 was presented. These were developed with customers in 2021 setting out the level of service customers expect of us.
Customer Strategy:
believe housing is developing a customer strategy, reflecting how it understands customers, listens to their individual needs, responds to their feedback and provides services that deliver a great customer experience.
In August, Customer Voices members took part in a workshop to inform its development and at this meeting they received and discussed the draft strategy.
The next meeting will be December 3, 2024.