Our Customer Charter
www.sbhg.co.uk
We are changing the ways we work Whether you are a Shepherds Bush Housing Association (SBHA) tenant, shared owner, or now have full ownership of your home in one of our properties, we are committed to providing you with an excellent standard of service. Over the next 12 months, our service vision is to ‘Get brilliant at the basics’. This means we need to ensure we offer you a responsive and efficient experience all of the time. To achieve this, we have changed the way we work with you and this customer charter sets out our commitments to you.
To deliver our customer commitments we have embarked on a journey of service improvements, recently bringing together our housing, leasehold management, and repairs services into one Customer Experience Team. In future, working with us will be made easier with a named dedicated Customer Relationship Manager, who will be the main point of contact for your housing needs. SBHA are investing in updating our digital capabilities to make communication with us more efficient. In future, you will have more choice in the ways you can access our services such as web chat, increased opening hours, and more self-service options, offering a more seamless customer service that is fit for the future.
We are changing the ways we work
At the heart of our six customer commitments is how we will work with you to deliver a responsive and efficient service. We will: • Aim to fix things first time – but when we get things wrong, we will say sorry and sort it out.
• Be straight with you and clear about timescales. • Aim to resolve your query as quickly as possible. • Make it simple for you to complain and aim to resolve your complaint in 10 days. • Check you are happy with the outcome. • Be upfront with you about our performance and what we're doing to improve it.
Involving and empowering you We empower you to get involved in shaping the future of our organisation and the decisions about your home. Telling us about your experience, good or bad, means that we can better understand what is important to you, what we are doing well and where we need to improve. What this will look like for you: • There are two customer involvement groups; Resident Voice, which is open to all residents and scrutinises our performance and service improvement plans, and a new Leasehold Forum, which is open to leaseholders.
• We will start to engage with you on your housing aspirations for the future so that we can ensure our homes and service are fit for purpose over the next 20 years. • You will receive regular customer feedback surveys and we will be transparent by publishing action plans in response to them. • Our complaints process will be more accessible so that it is easier for you to tell us when things need to be fixed. • A community platform will be launched, enabling us to expand our conversations and engagement with you in different ways.
Involving and empowering you
We know we will have achieved this when: We have a high level of customer satisfaction and advocacy, and customers feel we listen to, and act upon, their concerns.
Want to get involved?
Our overall customer satisfaction is 90% by March 2024.
Resident Voice To express an interest in joining Resident Voice, email: governance.team@sbhg.co.uk Leasehold Forum To express an interest in joining the Leasehold Forum, email: leaseholders.enquiries@sbhg.co.uk
Finding you the right home Your home will be clean and safe when you move in.
All our new homes will be built to sector-leading standards for energy efficiency and sustainability. When the time is right for you, we will help you downsize and provide moving support. What this will look like for you: • A dedicated customer experience and sales team to support all customers with advice about finding the right home for you. • A tailored aftercare service for new shared owners and clarity on your legal and home ownership responsibilities. • When commencing your tenancy, we will ensure your home is clean, safe, and ready for you to move into. • A member of our staff will visit you within six weeks of you moving into your new home to see how you are settling in.
Finding you the right home
We know we will have achieved this when: •
We have developed 205 new homes in 2021/22 reaching 1,200 by 2030.
•
We have sold 77 shared ownership homes by the end of 2021/22.
•
The time taken to re-let our homes has reduced from 30 days in 2020/21 to 14 days in 2021/22.
Making your neighbourhood a great place to live
We promote safe, clean and community-focused neighbourhoods.
SBHA will work with you to find out what can be done to improve the quality of your estate and local area and help you to create a thriving and sustainable community. What this will look like for you: • SBHA will regularly visit your estate and local area to inspect the cleanliness and maintenance of the grounds. • You will be invited on these routine estate walkabouts, enabling you to input into the improvements.
• When improvements are required, an action plan will be developed and communicated to keep you updated on the changes we will make. • SBHA will support you, and provide access to, independent mediation, for resolving neighbourhood disputes and anti-social behaviour. • We will proactively safeguard our most vulnerable residents, working with partners to sustain tenancies. • Work will be undertaken with agencies and neighbouring housing partners to tackle criminal activity, and when serious breaches have taken place we will take prompt enforcement action.
Making your neighbourhood a great place to live
We know we Your satisfaction on the of our homes has We have know we quality will increased to 90%. will have achieved inspections of all achieved this when:thisOur buildings, estates, and when: communal areas are published every six weeks.
Cases of anti-social behaviour and claims of tenancy fraud have reduced.
Fixing your home SBHA want you to enjoy living in your home. Keeping your home in a good condition is a joint effort. We will make right any fixes which are our responsibility. Our service is flexible; from reporting the problem, to fixing it at a time suitable for you. Our Customer Handbook makes it clear which items we will repair and those that are your responsibility. What this will look like for you: • Our new repairs team will be trained across different trades, allowing them to fix multiple repairs in one visit, reducing the number of visits required to solve the problem. • If your repair is an emergency, SBHA will offer you an appointment within 24 hours of you reporting it. If you cannot make that appointment, we will offer a convenient alternative.
• We will aim to complete any repairs on the first visit. Where that is not possible a followup appointment will be booked before we leave your home • Once your repair has been completed, you will receive a satisfaction survey to ensure we have resolved it for you. • We will develop some ‘how to’ guides to support you in maintaining your home. • If we carry out a repair that is your responsibility, we will charge you for the cost we incur plus an administration fee and VAT. We may also charge you if you have caused damage to the property.
Fixing your home
We know we will have achieved this when: Our repairs satisfaction is over 90%. 90% of our responsive repairs are fixed during the first visit.
Setting and collecting your rent and service charges Our rent and service charges are transparent, and the aim is to keep them low while providing a quality service. We will do everything possible to help residents avoid getting into arrears by working with expert partners who can offer you advice and support, and by ensuring our teams have time to listen and to understand your individual circumstances.
What this will look like for you: • You can pay your rent 24 hours a day online using the All Pay app, tenant portal, automated telephone service and by Direct Debit. • Service charges will be collected in a timely and costeffective manner. • You are provided with a breakdown of what your service charge has paid for and where your money goes. • Where repairs or major works may impact your charges, a new process of informing you about proposed improvements will be launched, making it easier for you to understand them and ask questions.
Setting and collecting your rent and service charges
• We will develop stronger partnerships with organisations to support our customers in financial hardship.
Want to get • On receiving a referral, our Income Team will contact you involved? within 48 hours. • All new customers will receive a welcome letter focusing on what they can expect and what we need in return. • We will launch a new scheme to support customers getting back into suitable employment through career coaching and training.
We know we will have achieved this when: We have engaged with at least 90% of our customers who fall into arrears.
When we have accessed an additional £250K of benefits for our customers each year.
Ensuring the quality and safety of your home To minimise the need for fixes, our property records will ensure proactive routine maintenance, safety checks and servicing of your home.
SBHA is proactive in the upkeep and servicing of your home and will aim to minimise the need for fixes with routine maintenance.
What this will look like for you: • Emergency repairs and regular fire safety assessments will be carried out. • All our homes will meet the Decent Home Standard. • Compulsory safety assessments are carried out including gas safety checks every year and electrical safety checks every five years, as well as routine fire risk assessments and other compliancebased safety checks, as needed. • We will routinely inspect all homes to ensure our records are updated and so that we can plan proactive routine maintenance. • Efficient mobility adaptations are offered following a recommendation from an occupational therapist, where applicable. • All homeowners are provided with fiveyear major works information to help them with their financial planning. • Ahead of major and planned works, which affect your home, we will proactively communicate our intentions with you.
Ensuring the quality and safety of your home
We know we will have achieved this when: All homes meet the Decent Home Standard. We have collected stock condition data for 100% of our homes, which will help inform our reinvestment programme.
SBHA is registered with the Homes and Communities Agency (No. LH0050) and a Community Benefit Society, registered as a Mutual Society with the Financial Conduct Authority (No 16442R). SBHA is National Housing Federation and Housing Ombudsman scheme member. SBHA complies with the NHF Code of Governance.
www.sbhg.co.uk