Customer accounts

Customer accounts

Over the past year our teams have continued to make sure we’re supporting our customers to pay their rent and other charges whilst protecting the business in a challenging time. Many people experienced difficult circumstances adjusting to an ever-changing world around us brought about by COVID-19 and an uncertain economic climate. We worked closely with our Financial Wellbeing colleagues and together planned how we could best help to make sure customers received the advice and support needed to pay their rent and charges.

At the end of the year, our rent arrears performance was at 2.02%* against a target of 3%. This was a huge achievement for us and our customers during a very turbulent year, especially as we were not able to carry out face to face visits during lockdown periods. This meant having to find new ways of working, such as making more calls and having more conversations with our customers, and where we were able to, interacting using a wider range of digital options, such as MyAster. While there have of course been challenges during the year, these new ways of working have shown where we can continue to evolve and improve our service to customers more generally.

*Our rent arrears figure is based on the amount of outstanding rent owed at the end of a given month, as a percentage of the total rent due.