Your feedback - All our futures: How residents help shape Muir
CUSTOMER feedback regularly inspires Muir towards better ways of working.
The housing association continues to maintain its vision of delivering excellent housing services and supporting residents to be successful in their tenancies.
Residents help define the path Muir takes in its efforts to achieve its goals, be it through verbal feedback, responses to satisfaction surveys, or the letters and emails we receive.
During recent months, we have been reviewing how we respond to that feedback and how we can use it to enhance the level of service Muir delivers.
Muir Group Housing Association’s Assistant Director of Communities and Customer Service, Mark Pearson (pictured right) said: “We know we don’t always get things right. But we need to learn from the times we get it wrong, and feedback from our residents helps us do this.
“It has been a criticism in the past that we don’t always listen or act on feedback about our services.
“That is something we want residents to see changing, but we can only do that by acting on the feedback we receive.”
Muir recently held a series of three Resident Engagement Events, in Chester, Burnley and Huntingdon near Cambridge.
The outcomes of those events are being analysed before being used to help shape what we do.
However, we have also been busy actioning some of the feedback received in the Muir satisfaction surveys.
Muir’s Customer Service Manager, Andrew Warren (left) said: “Thanks to issues raised by residents, we realised that the way we stored letters on our system, regarding planned improvement works, could be improved.
“This was leading to issues identifying work we had advised would be done, so we have now updated our Asset Management System which will ensure letters and documents are stored more effectively.
“All contact with residents is now recorded effectively on the same system; so, whether they speak to us on the phone or face to face, this communication will all be stored in the same way; making sure Muir has a complete record of events.”
One of the issues also raised by residents was that Muir was not always visible on the ground, that we didn’t consistently advertise scheme inspections, and that they didn’t really know who their Tenancy Services Officer was.
Muir now regularly carries out more scheme inspections to better identify issues affecting residents and make Tenancy Services Officers more visible.
These inspections are advertised on the Assocaition’s Twitter and Facebook accounts in advance, and staff have already been out and about responding to their finds – as one of our housing teams recently demonstrated at Muir’s Gosforth Place scheme (see here).
Andrew said: “We are also looking to improve our response times to complaints and trialing new ways of working to achieve this.
“Getting things right first time is important to us and this is why Muir is reviewing the delivery of its Property Services, so we perform better when undertaking repairs and maintenance to properties (see here).
“People, Places, Passion, are three goals integral to us all at Muir. By learning from the feedback we receive, they will remain at the heart of everything we do.”