Customer Feedback and Complaints
We are always keen to hear your feedback as this helps us to learn and understand areas where we are delivering services well and areas where we can improve.
Dissatisfaction and informal complaints
Informal complaints and dissatisfaction are recorded by our Connect Contact Centre in our Customer Relationship Management system (CRM). The most common reason for dissatisfaction is unresolved repairs and property related issues.
As we continue to work on the difficulties caused by the pandemic and supply issues, we know that our repair service continues to struggle to recover to its usual high standards. Whilst we are able to reliably deal with all emergency and urgent repairs, the backlog of non-urgent routine repairs remains higher than usual. We are, however, continuing to make good inroads in the backlog of works and expect our repairs service to return to normal in the coming months.
We know that a key area we need to continue to work on is improving communication with our customers, particularly when delays occur with our repairs service delivery. We have recently implemented a new text message system to enable us to provide our tenants and residents with more regular updates when delays occur with repairs.
Despite these issues, we continue to maintain positive satisfaction scores from our customer feedback surveys when repairs are completed at our properties. If you receive a customer feedback survey about our services, please take the time to leave a comment with your score – it really does help us to understand the areas which are working well and the areas where we need to consider improvements.
Formal Complaint Investigations
In most cases, the quickest and most effective way to resolve complaints or dissatisfaction is for us to try to put things right quickly working with our managers.
However, if you remain unhappy with how your complaint has been handled outside of the formal process, you can ask for your complaint to be escalated to the formal process. More information, including the role of The Housing Ombudsman can be found here https://www.jigsawhomes.org.uk/complaints/
During quarter 2 (July to September 2022) we closed 73 complaint investigations through our formal complaints process.
In 13 cases, the customer remained unhappy with the investigation and response and escalated their complaint to the final ‘Review’ stage of the complaints process. In two of the Review cases, the reviewing senior manager found additional failure and agreed further actions.
Complaints (Stage 1 – Investigation) Q1 April- June 2022
Jigsaw North: 26
Jigsaw Tameside: 28
Jigsaw Midlands: 6
Jigsaw Support: 0
Total (closed cases): 60
Complaints (Stage 1 – Investigation) Q2 July-September 2022
Jigsaw North: 43
Jigsaw Tameside: 23
Jigsaw Midlands: 7
Jigsaw Support: 0
Total (closed cases): 73
Complaint Outcomes Q2 July-September 2022
Complaint upheld (service failure): 23
Complaint upheld in part (partial service failure): 14
Complaint not upheld (no service failure): 36
Complaint Investigations by Department Q2 July-September 2022
Allocations/Lettings: 6
Repairs – Planned/Investment: 7
Repairs – Routine responsive: 27
Neighbourhood Safety (ASB): 7
Asset Management – Environmental: 3
Neighbourhood – Tenancy Matters: 5
Development/ new builds: 2
Income recovery: 4
Service charge/ leasehold: 2
Other/ multiple issues: 10
Housing Ombudsman Service
We received two determinations from The Housing Ombudsman during this reporting period. In both cases no maladministration was found with the landlords handling of the reported matters.
Case 1: The complaint is about the Association’s decision not to consider various new complaints and our decision to impose contact restrictions. No maladministration found.
Case 2: The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s air
Ventilation system. No maladministration found.
Legal Disrepair Claims
A disrepair claim is another form of ‘complaint’ which is handled through a legal process. Many of the claims we receive are as a result of ‘Claim Farmers’ who mislead people into taking out legal suits.
The majority of these claim farmers sell on the claims to lawyers, whose interest is making money on the back of a claim, with any costs paid out going directly to the law firm. In a small number of cases damages are paid to the tenant, but after sizable fees are removed from the law firm.
Disrepair (Legal) claim outcomes for closed cases during reporting period – Q1 April-June 2022
Successfully defended by landlord: 30
Settled (with costs): 13
Case dismissed at court: 1
Unsuccessful at trial: 0
Successful at trial: 0
Claim withdrawn: 1
Disrepair (Legal) claim outcomes for closed cases during reporting period – Q2 July-September 2022
Successfully defended by landlord: 50
Settled (with costs): 26
Case dismissed at court: 0
Unsuccessful at trial: 1
Successful at trial: 4
Claim withdrawn: 2
We are committed to providing an excellent service to our customers. However, we realise that things can occasionally go wrong. If this happens to you or if you feel our service doesn’t meet your expectations, then we want you to let us know and we will always try to resolve your problem as quickly as possible.
We have a robust complaints process and compensation policy which is flexible enough to respond to individual cases as they arise without the need for escalating legal fees.
If you have any concerns about your property, or any unresolved repair issues, please contact us so we can to look to put things right for you and agree a resolution.
