TSM survey reveals just 34% tenant satisfaction with complaint-handling

Data is being collected through tenant perception surveys and landlord data and will have to be handed to the regulator next year. 

The TSMs cover five main themes: repairs, building safety, effective complaint-handling, respectful and helpful tenant engagement, and responsible neighbourhood management.

Housemark surveyed its members on their performance from April, when landlords began surveying for the TSMs, to September 2023.

The findings show that overall satisfaction has continued to fall, from 85.1% in 2018-19 to 76% in 2022-23 and 72.3% after six months since April.

The data revealed large variations in overall satisfaction scores depending on landlord size, household size and location. The median overall satisfaction score for large urban local authorities is 62.3%, compared to 77.5% for smaller, often more rural, housing associations.

Satisfaction with the sector’s repairs services averages around 15 percentage points lower in TSMs – 74.5% – compared to the latest transactional post-repair surveys reported to Housemark.

Transactional surveys occur after a tenant has received a service, which is generally a positive outcome.

Perception surveys, which must be used for the TSMs, are a random sample of all tenants, and will include tenants who have not had recent experience of the landlord’s service, as well as residents who have requested a service but are still waiting for it to be completed.

Landlords reported completing more than 80% of non-emergency repairs and more than 95% of emergency repairs in target. 

Housemark found that most landlords are at or close to full compliance with each set of building safety regulations measured through the TSMs, with tenants “largely satisfied that their home is safe and well-maintained”.

Satisfaction that landlords listen to tenants and take action averaged among the lowest TSM scores, with only 61% saying their landlord listens to tenants’ views and acts on them.

Only 34% of tenants are satisfied with their landlord’s complaint-handling, which Housemark said suggests that tenants are “not getting what they expect from complaining”.

Landlords can conduct TSM surveys using a variety of methods including telephone, online, face-to-face and SMS. 

Inside Housing’s research found that the majority of landlords were opting to use telephone, an increase when comparing previous survey methods. 

Housemark’s figures reflect this – it found that 77.7% of landlords used telephone as their main survey method, while just 1% have opted for face-to-face. 

Both methods yield more favourable results when compared to online surveys, although the latter would be more demanding in terms of resource.

Housemark’s analysis shows that London-based landlords record much larger complaint ratios – 33.1 per 1,000 properties – compared to landlords in the North at 18.2 and the English median at 21.8. 

Jonathan Cox, director of data and business intelligence at Housemark, said: “While the full-year results may change, these mid-year figures highlight that tenants feel social landlords still have much to learn from complaints. 

“TSM results show that tenants are not satisfied with complaint-handling, with many feeling that they are not being listened to.

“Also, while repairs performance is in line with Housemark trend data, the move from transaction to perception surveys for repairs satisfaction has resulted in much lower figures for many landlords. 

“This is an issue that landlords will need to consider in future when deciding how best to gather their data.”