What settle homeowners think of our services
![settle vans website](https://www.settlegroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/settle-vans-website.jpg)
We surveyed settle homeowners at the end of the summer asking what they think of our services, how they prefer to communicate with us and how easy they find it to contact us. We use the term homeowner for shared owners, leaseholders and freeholders.
Following feedback from our survey carried out in 2021 – we have produced a Home Ownership Handbook which provides general information and guidance on the services that settle provide to homeowners.
We’re listening
From the most recent survey, we can see that the three areas where residents want to see an improvement in our services include grounds maintenance, communal cleaning and repairs.
We know that we can do better in these areas.
Acting on your feedback, our leadership team has recently inspected some of our communal areas. We have increased our monitoring schedule to ensure our grounds maintenance and cleaning contractors are delivering to the service level agreement set out.
Other things we have done as a result of your feedback:
- Improved communication with residents with updates about existing repairs.
- We’ve provided more information specific to homeowners on our website
- Every newsletter and rent statement has a link to our online services to remind homeowners how to sign up for an account and access services.
- Holding community days in larger neighbourhoods where settle colleagues can meet with residents, like skip days to promote litter collection and recycling.
- Updating content on all noticeboards with our service standards, general maintenance and cleaning schedules over the coming months.
- Promoting and recruiting residents to the homeowner engagement focus group which has been requested by homeowners.
We will continue to review these actions to improve these services and send out surveys so that all homeowner residents can make sure their voice is heard. If there is anything else that you would like to talk to us about – please send us an email and one of the Home Ownership team will get back to you.
We were delighted to see some services performed better in this year’s survey. Communication was 8% better this year compared to survey results from 2021, making it the highest scoring area. Other areas where scores improved were complaint handling by 14% and ease to having property permissions approved increased by 19%.
Website experience
When it comes to ease of contacting us, we received a score of six out of ten with most homeowners saying they prefer to get in touch with us by email and calling us instead of using the website.
We want customers to have a good experience when they use our website. As part of a website redesign earlier this year we’ve listened to feedback and updated and designed the navigation process involving many of our residents, including homeowners.
Homeowners can create an account and do things like report repairs and other requests, see charges and make payments and update their contact information. Just fill out the form on the Homeowner update contact details form and our team will set up an account for you.
Would you like to be part of our new leaseholder engagement focus group where you can help shape how we deliver our services to leasehold residents. For more information on how you can be part of the panel, please email the Home Ownership team.