North Devon Homes is a non-profit housing association that has provided affordable homes to residents since 2000. With 3,200 properties almost exclusively in one local authority, North Devon Homes isn’t just a social housing provider, but sets out with an ambition to be a community landlord too.
The housing association focuses on connecting with their tenants (or customers as they prefer to be called) and providing a living environment where they can thrive. At the forefront of their endeavours is the drive to build and nurture an organisational culture that genuinely listens to their community.
Read on to discover how North Devon Homes gained valuable tenant insight with Voicescape Feedback…
The challenge
From 1st April 2023, social housing landlords and local authorities must collect and ultimately publish data for all 22 tenant satisfaction measures (TSM). Embracing this requirement, North Devon Homes wanted to go one step further, cultivating stronger community engagement and capturing real-time feedback from their tenants.
The housing association could have done this manually, but gathering genuine insights was important to them, so they opted for a tech solution that has an anonymity feature.
“North Devon Homes wants everyone who sits behind one of our front doors to have an opportunity to share their thoughts and hold us to account. We sought a way that this would be easy for our customers to do, and Voicescape seemed to be a natural extension having already worked in other areas. Opening up this platform can only put North Devon Homes in a stronger position.”
– Marc Rostock, Director of Neighbourhoods at North Devon Homes
The solution
Voicescape Feedback enables authorities and social housing associations to send automated tenant satisfaction surveys so they can drive continuous improvement. The cost-effective solution ensures your data collection is in line with the measures, while providing greater insight into how your tenants feel.
North Devon Homes is in the early stages of using Voicescape Feedback to gather information on TSM, and has been sending out monthly surveys to different targeted cohorts. They started small, but are now reaching one-twelfth of their residents.
They’ve even teamed up with local press so tenants know what to expect, raising awareness of how to spot the difference between a scam and their upcoming TSM surveys.
The results
North Devon Homes is approximately 25% through the process they planned to deliver this year. The first round of data analysis has provided positive outcomes, many of which are aligned with what they expected, and some offering new insight.
Within the spectrum of data, North Devon Homes received good feedback on fairness and respect, allowing them to have internal conversations about how this is working, plus safety measures too. They’re able to look at how different demographics feel, and have the opportunity to put the data alongside day-to-day work to hypothesise scenarios.
While some customers were initially sceptical about the surveys, they’re now looking forward to seeing the impact of the results for the Customer Scrutiny Programme.
“We’re feeling positive about inviting all our customers to share their thoughts. And, with a certain cohort of customers fairly satisfied, insight like this is good for keeping the momentum in the team at North Devon Homes going. Joanne and the team at Voicescape have been brilliant at assisting us.”
– Marc Rostock, Director of Neighbourhoods at North Devon Homes