Big Door Knock – What residents aged between 24-34 told us
Every few months, we carry out our Big Door Knock, where colleagues, including members of our Executive Team and Board, go out to neighbourhoods to talk to residents so they can tell us first-hand how they feel about their homes and how we’re doing as their landlord.
In February we carried out or Big Door Knock with residents aged 24-34. We knocked on 800 doors and spoke to 171 residents.
We chose this age group because surveys carried out for the Tenant Satisfaction Measures have shown that they are the least satisfied demographic when it comes to some of our services.
These include repairs and the timeliness of completing them, cleanliness of communal areas, and our responsiveness to residents’ concerns.
Repair – Waiting Times
58% of residents we spoke to expressed their satisfaction with the timescale of their repair. The majority of these residents cited quick repairs and the overall service as the reasons for their score. 30% of residents were dissatisfied with their repair, and the most common reasons were delays in the repair being carried out, multiple visits to complete the repair and poor communication.
Our target this year is to complete 90% of routine repairs within 28 days. We ended the year that finished on 31st March 2024 having completed 72% of repairs within target, reducing the average days to complete from 29 days in 2022-23 to 26 days in 2023-24. More information on this can be found our April repairs service update. Throughout the year we have also been working on improvements to help us complete repairs more quickly. As part of this, we have focussed on reducing the number of jobs we have open on our systems at any one time.
Communal Areas
From the number of residents that have access to communal areas (39), 60% of them were satisfied with the cleaning and maintenance of their communal areas. However, 22% of residents were dissatisfied, highlighting issues with the need for repairs to gates and doors as well as seasonal maintenance. We know how important it is to ensure we keep communal areas and grounds well maintained. Some of the improvements we have introduced recently in response to resident feedback include:
- More frequent and regular post-inspections to ensure quality of work in our communal spaces and green areas. We are planning to carry out random quality audits and use these outcomes to review and help influence the shape of our services going forward.
- Agreeing a new window cleaning contractor which we aim to be in place from the middle of the summer 2024.
- Identifying where we can make improvements to our overall soft landscape features with things like additional planting and cleaning of pathways.
Positive impact in the neighbourhood
We asked residents how satisfied they are that settle has a positive impact in their neighbourhood and what we should focus on to improve this. 59% of residents were satisfied, stating they felt happy, safe and comfortable in their neighbourhoods. Those that were dissatisfied highlighted maintenance of green areas, a focus on repairs/maintenance and cleaning as areas for improvement.
Listen and Act
Residents were asked how happy they were with how we listen and act on their feedback. 58% of residents said they were happy and felt that settle listens to their views and acts accordingly. They also felt we communicated well with them and met their needs sufficiently helping them to feel supported by settle.
20% expressed dissatisfaction, in that they usually felt that we listen to their concerns, but we fail to address them appropriately. 22% did not feel strongly either way.
A Listen and Act group was set up in July 2023 for colleagues to come together regularly to review feedback we get from residents including that from tenant satisfaction measures. Every quarter colleagues look into a topic to discuss ways that we can make improvements, for example, we recently looked at how we could increase resident satisfaction around communal spaces.
Escalations
From those we spoke to, 51% had an issue that they wanted to escalate. The most common escalation was existing repairs.
Have your say
If you would like to share your views on our services – you can tell us what we could do better or when we’ve done something well. More information about our Big Door Knocks is available in our How We Collect Feedback section.
