Learning from your feedback

Our complaints service

Why focus on complaints?

The number of complaints we – and other housing associations – receive has been rising and increased volumes have meant that we’ve not always got it right when it comes to responding to your complaints quickly and effectively.

What improvements are we making to the complaints process?

We’re making a host of changes so that you can expect a caring, compassionate and professional service if you ever wish to make a complaint. These include:

Ensuring our complaints teams are the right size and structure to respond to changing trends in complaints volumes
Introducing a specialist team to manage and investigate stage one and two complaints reviews
Providing training and support for colleagues so we consistently deliver an excellent customer service
Bringing in new quality standards for our complaints response letters, so they are clearer and more empathetic, and prioritising training on letter writing for all colleagues in complaints
Focusing on learning from complaints so we don’t continue to make the same mistakes.

Go to Complaints

Our repairs service

Why focus on repairs?

We know that four out of five complaints are repairs-related and our Tenant Satisfaction Measures scores also indicate that you want a better repairs service.

What are we doing to improve our repairs service?

We’ve been working with our engaged customers on a project to improve our repairs service. So far, we’ve been focused on:

Improving our systems so we can register, assign and manage repairs better. As part of this, we’ve introduced a new appointment booking process for two of our contractors, Fortem and MPS, so you can agree a visit date when you call in to report your repair
Enabling Orbit colleagues to deliver a ‘right-first-time’ service through more targeted training and improved processes and diagnostics. To support this, we’ve introduced specialists in our Customer Support Hub who deal with more advanced queries in their given area and provide direct routes to our contractors
Working closely with our contractors to improve their service
Updating our repairs policy so it is clearer and easier to understand
Giving you access to helpful information so you can carry out maintenance tasks that aren’t included in your repairs service.
Implementing tighter control measures to monitor the cost of our repairs service
Improving the way in which we communicate across our business and ensuring the necessary processes are in place to support our business operations

Go to Repairs

The Customer Support Hub

Why focus on the Customer Support Hub?

We know that there have been times when you’ve waited too long for us to answer your call and that you want us to be easier to deal with when you contact us via our Customer Support Team.

What are we doing to improve our service when you contact us?

Putting in place a new team structure so you get a speedier resolution when you call us. As part of this, we now have specialists on hand who have been trained to deal with more advanced queries, in areas such as tenancy and lettings, income (rent), and repairs
Introducing a ‘call back’ option, so you can hold you position in the queue without having to sit on the phone waiting for your call to be answered
Setting up a team to make proactive, outbound calls. This includes welcome calls to new customers and follow-up calls to existing customers where appropriate. The team also contacts customers who have ongoing issues or expressed dissatisfaction.

Shared owners, leaseholders and outright owners

Why focus on shared owners, leaseholders and outright owners?

Our Tenant Satisfaction Measures show that our shared owners are less satisfied with our services than customers in rented homes. This is a trend we’ve seen in other surveys and feedback – and this is also the case for leaseholders and outright owners.

What are we doing to improve the experience of shared owners, leaseholders and outright owners?

We’re currently planning a series of improvements designed specifically to benefit shared owners, leaseholders and outright owners.

Right now, we’re focusing on:

Setting up a dedicated customer engagement group for owners
Ensuring you can get a quicker response from us when you have a query – no matter what channel you contact us via. We’ll be focusing on email responses initially as this is an area you’ve highlighted for improvement, along with introducing specialists into the Customer Support Hub to help resolve more complex queries at first contact
Introducing training for colleagues so there’s a better understanding of issues that matter to owners, such as leases, owners’ rights and obligations, estates management, service charge and staircasing
Improving the experience of owners looking for information on our customer website, with the introduction of a dedicated page.

Estates services

Why focus on estates services?

We know that your communities are important to you and your feedback and our Tenant Satisfaction Measures scores tell us that you want us to deliver an even better standard of estates services.

What are we doing to improve the estates services we deliver to you?

Here are just some of the ways in which we’re focusing on improving our estates services, so you can feel proud of where of you live:

We have put in place new contracts for Grounds Maintenance in the East and South Region s and Communal Cleaning across all regions. A number of new contractors will be delivering these services and we’ve worked with our engaged customers to make sure that the specification for the contracts meets customer expectations.
From April 2025, new contracts will also be in place for grounds maintenance services in our North and Central Midlands regions subject to a Section 20 Consultation with you.
We’re improving the way we manage our estates services contracts by implementing a revised contract and introducing new IT systems that enable us to monitor performance more closely.
We have developed a web page, to provide you information on the specification you can expect to receive for each of your services

We’re working with our engaged customers to develop a system that will allow customers to provide real time feedback on estates services in their community, so we can respond if services aren’t being provided to the right standards.