News

Sutton Housing Partnership has been awarded the Customer Service Excellence accreditation, recognising the hard work being done to improve all aspects of our customer care offering.

The accreditation was awarded following an independent assessment, which involved interviews with staff and honest feedback from residents, and was completed during lockdown. 

The award has come as part of our New Deal commitment and is a result of listening to residents and the hard work of our staff improving our processes, learning from complaints, queries and feedback. It also recognises the improvements being made in front line services across the organisation including estate services, repairs and housing management.

Key findings by the assessor included:

• Consultation with residents is integral to improving services and a range of processes have been designed and implemented to engage and involve them. Residents were aware of the different activities through which they could express their views and opinions to inform improvements and  changes to the service. 

• The quarterly magazine, reports and face-to-face conversations are used to inform residents of how SHP has responded to the feedback. 

• Specific reference was made to some of the Housing Managers who were consistently polite, friendly, professional and patient. The residents interviewed gave examples of how these individuals go ‘above and beyond’, including weekly the check-in through to shopping due to the current crisis 

• Staff are encouraged to contribute to communities through a range of activities, including volunteering. There is a focus at the start of, and throughout their employment with the SHP community and wider to give back to the different communities.

• SHP actively identify hard-to-reach groups and individuals, including those that require additional support due to disabilities and poor health - a range of activities have been identified and implemented to support groups and individuals. For example, Loneliness Project whereby different workshops have been hosted including health and wellbeing, yoga, drumming, etc. through to individual ‘check in’ and support to enable independent living

Whilst we are pleased our efforts to improve services for residents have been recognised as meeting this exacting standard, we are aware there is still much room for improvement. As part of the assessment process, we have highlighted areas we will be working to improve in the coming year, as we aim to deliver a consistently excellent service for our residents.

Steve Tucker, Managing Director of Sutton Housing Partnership, said: “This award recognises the huge improvements we have made to our resident facing services through the feedback from and insight of residents themselves. I commend the hard work of SHP staff in striving to deliver excellence for our residents and I would like to thank everyone involved in getting us to this point.

“Whilst this is very good news, we know there are still areas in which we need to improve our service. The report highlights key areas for attention over the coming year and I want to reassure residents that we will prioritise these improvements to be fully accredited by 2021.”