When things go wrong
Highlights of the year
Every complaint we receive is a valuable opportunity to put things right and rebuild trust, as well as learn from mistakes and make improvements to the way we deliver services.
This year we’ve built a dedicated learning log, and an associated Service Improvement Plan, to make sure we’re acting on the insight and information we get from complaints. The Service Improvement Plan is monitored by the Customer Resolutions Manager, which will be overseen by our new Resolutions Steering group.
At the end of 2023/24, we expanded the Customer Resolution team to provide more support to colleagues responding to complaints
Learnings and improvements made this year
Our learning log and service improvement plan tracks learnings found through to implementation and monitoring. Here are some of the changes we made in 2023/2024:
Appointments
Residents get frustrated when we miss appointments. Missed appointments fall into a couple of categories – those we miss on the day, and those we reschedule at short notice. Our team scrutinise the diaries and plans to make sure that the appointments booked in will be attended; and communicate early if we need to change plans.
Communication
Communication is one of the most mentioned issues when residents complain to us. We’ve trained all office-based staff on the best way to communicate through bespoke training, and have continued to train new starters in the Mary Gober method – our customer service and communication standard.
Record-keeping
Too often, we haven’t had records of key decisions or actions on our residents case files. We’ve issued Microsoft Dynamics (our Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, system) training to all staff to remind them of how to use the system correctly, and introduced a dedicated trainer role to make sure that all colleagues are getting the right support and training.
What we are focussing on in 2024/25
This is a big focus area for all of us at Wandle next year.
Fewer stage 2 complaints
We want to see fewer complaints escalate to stage 2. At the end of 2023/24, we expanded the Customer Resolution team to provide more support to colleagues responding to complaints. Now that the team is fully resourced, all stage 2 responses, and targeted samples of stage 1 responses, will be reviewed by these specialists to make sure that responses are consistent, fair and actions promised are followed up by our operational teams.
Resolutions Steering Group
We have formed a Resolutions Steering Group, made up of Board members, residents and senior colleagues, who will be focussed on the root causes of complaints and escalation, and how we put things right. This scrutiny will support colleagues to deliver quality customer service.
Customer Relationship Management
We want to make some parts of our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system easier to use, so that our record keeping continues to improve, which will in turn make a difference to our services to customers.
Complaints handled on time (CH02)
This year (2023/24)
Stage 1
This year (2023/24)
Stage 2
Next year target
Stage 1 and Stage 2
Satisfaction that Wandle treats you fairly and with respect (TP08)
This year (2023/24)
Target for next year (2024/25)
Stage 1 complaints received from tenants in 2023/24
Stage 2 complaints received from tenants in 2023/24
Working Days
The average time to complete Stage 1 response.
We aim for 10 working days.
Stage 1 complaints from tenants in 2023/24 resolved on time
Stage 2 complaints from tenants in 2023/24 resolved on time
Stage 1 complaints from tenants in 2023/24 resolved outside of time
Stage 2 complaints from tenants in 2023/24 resolved outside of time
Working Days
The average time to complete Stage 2 response.
We aim for 20 working days.
Satisfaction with complaint handling (TP09)
We’re really disappointed with this score and have set a target this year to get to 25% - which is the average of other London-based housing associations a similar size to us, with an aim to improve more each year.
We know it is hard to be satisfied when often the reason for complaining is due to our service failures but your feedback on how we have then dealt with the complaint, rather than the reason for the complaint is helpful for us to understand.