Understanding the Tenant Satisfaction Measures and what they mean

The TSM’s were brought in last year to tackle the lack of consistency among housing associations as to how they measure and then reported their customer satisfaction scores.

Previously, housing associations were allowed to do their own survey and scoring based on their own criteria, which meant customers couldn’t compare the performance of housing associations.

The new TSM process means all housing associations with over 1,000 homes must ask their customers the same 12 perception questions.

The questions gauge customers' overall satisfaction together with their satisfaction with certain aspects of an organisation's performance like repairs, managing anti-social behaviour and how they treat their customers.

Steve Hallowell was keen to point out that for Home Group our focus is on delivering on our Customer Promise and consistently delivering quality services to our customers. This should naturally drive good and improving satisfaction scores. 

Steve also pointed out that an independent organisation carries out the survey on our behalf.  This helps to ensure that the surveys carried out are representative of our customer base.

One customer asked if this was now the only way customers could feedback.

Steve confirmed that the in-depth engagement that Home Group currently has with customers, like these forum sessions and the wide ranging involvement activity - both of which bring much greater understanding to customers’ views than one survey - would continue as normal. And we will also be looking at new ways to listen to our customers to enrich feedback and inform how we shape our customer service

He also shared Home Group’s current TSM results with customers. Overall, the figures were consistent with levels across the housing association sector and with a group of similar organisations - Home Group’s benchmark peers.

Overall our satisfaction was at 68.3%, which compares with an average of 66.5% with our peer benchmark. Across the sector, there were a lot of variations in the results nationally – from 40% to 95% - depending on the size of the housing association.

In relation to Home Group, Steve said we were fairly happy with the results but still felt there was a lot more we could do to improve. And something, he added, Home Group was focused on.

After sharing the results Steve opened the meeting to questions from customers. They ranged from:

How is the survey carried out? – through an independent agency by telephone first (except our supported customers which is done face to face with a colleague present) although we also survey some customers digitally.

Is it a random sample? – yes

Why aren’t leaseholder answers represented in the final TSM scores which Home Group report to the Regulator? – the Regulator’s requirements for TSMs are very prescriptive and they are only seeking satisfaction data for rented, supported, and shared ownership customers. But Steve said Home Group will report back our leasehold satisfaction scores to customers.

A final question related to the low level of satisfaction with complaints handling, asking why it was so low and what was being done about it? Steve highlighted that generally across the sector, there is a low level of satisfaction with how complaints are handled, but this by no means mitigates the low score.

He highlighted that Home Group has brought in the biggest changes in complaint handing in his 27 years with the organisation, with wholesale changes to how we will manage complaints in future. Specialist case handlers have been trained, subject matter experts have been brought in, the processes have been streamlined, with specific attention to customer communication during complaint handling as well as organisational wide training on complaints. 

Of course, it will take time for customers to see the impact of these changes, and the impact in terms of complaint satisfaction probably won’t be seen when our first set of TSM scores are published later this year.

However, he expects to see major improvements over the next year which will be reflected in the TSM scores for 2024/25.