How are landlords approaching tenant satisfaction measures?

The results, while broadly positive, are a mixed bag. A majority of organisations are engaging successfully with the new framework; many are finding it useful, with a sizeable proportion using the results of TSM surveys to shape their services and business strategy. But there are some negative responses, too, from respondents who see this as an unnecessary imposition, or as unfairly burdensome to smaller, specialist providers.

Organisations are using the full spectrum of communication channels to conduct TSM surveys with residents. In total, this question garnered 340 answers from 138 respondents, which suggests organisations are using a combination of these approaches to ensure they reach as many people as possible.

Almost three-quarters say they collect responses over the phone, and just over half say they use email. Website forms and face-to-face surveys were the next most popular – but the survey also included a box for respondents to detail any other approach they used. We received 23 answers here, ranging from focus groups, to text messages and good old-fashioned letters.

Most organisations, however, are not doing the legwork themselves. Just over half say they outsource TSM surveys to a third party, while around one in three conducts them in-house. Why is outsourcing TSMs so popular? Well, doing it in-house carries some obvious potential risks. As Thomas Lancefield, lead for social housing in the UK and Ireland at Salesforce, says: “Maybe they feel it [outsourcing] is a safer route.” Internal resourcing could also be an issue, he suggests.

These surveys are more of a stretch on resources, relatively speaking, for smaller organisations. As one respondent commented: “For specialist providers, there is a feeling that the TSMs are of little value, but are something we need to do, which is frustrating given resources could be allocated elsewhere.”

Listen up

Collecting feedback can take up a lot of bandwidth – especially given the efforts landlords make to ensure tenants are heard. Asked which communication channels residents can use to make contact, more than 80% of respondents cited web forms, telephone, face-to-face meetings and email, while three-quarters also mentioned social media.

“When it comes to consolidating all of the responses from the different channels, larger organisations may have technology platforms that enable them to do that,” says Mr Lancefield. “A smaller housing association might just not have that capability.”

The feedback provided by TSM surveys is clearly beneficial to providers as well as their residents, according to a large majority of respondents; more than 80% said the data generated is either ‘very useful’ (54%) or ‘fairly useful’ (30%) to their organisations.

Additional comments left by survey respondents were broadly representative of this mix. “Without asking tenants, how do we know what we’re doing right or wrong?” one respondent wrote. “It enables us to adapt our services to meet customer needs,” another said. Not everyone was as enthusiastic, however. Just over one in 10 said that the surveys were ‘not very useful’ or ‘not useful at all’ (7% said they did not know either way).