Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs)

Understanding Tenant Satisfaction Measures:

Your Guide to Better Social Housing

What are TSMs?

In spring 2023, a new way to improve social housing came into play. It’s called Tenant Satisfaction Measures, or TSMs for short.

These measures are all about making sure you’re happy with your home and the service you receive as a valued customer.

What TSMs mean for Aspire?

Think of TSMs as our report card. They show you how well we’re doing our job and give you a clear way to hold us accountable. Plus, they help the regulator spot any areas where we might need to up our game.

We want you to know that these measures are all about making Aspire Housing better for you, from our homes to our housing services and even our Aspire team.

What are the measures?

There are 22 TSMs in total, and they cover two main areas:

1. Your Voice (12 measures):

This is where you get to tell us how we’re doing. Are you happy with our repairs? Do you feel we handle complaints well? Your honest feedback helps us improve.

2. Our Performance (10 measures):

These are based on facts and figures about our service. For example, how many of our homes meet the Decent Homes standard, or how we’re handling any neighbourhood issues.

What We’re Focusing On

At Aspire, we’re using TSMs to make sure we’re on top of what matters most to you:

• Keeping your home in tip-top shape with great repairs

• Ensuring your building is safe and high-quality

• Treating you with respect and being helpful whenever you need us

• Handling any complaints quickly and fairly

• Making sure your locality and neighbourhood is a great place to live

FAQs

Why are we doing this survey?

We’re undertaking a new customer satisfaction perception survey from April 2023 to meet new regulatory requirements.

Tenant satisfaction is a key measure of our ‘People First’ strategy, and measures from this survey form part of our corporate KPI suite.

What is our approach?

We’re taking a ‘look twice’ approach to our customer satisfaction survey results:
looking once to improve things for the individual customer affected; and a second time to identify wider patterns that can improve things for our business and wider customer base.

As such, we propose to take a sample-based approach rather than a census approach, and a phased approach of surveying continuously across the year, rather than as a one-off annual activity.

We’re taking this approach as we believe this steady and manageable stream of feedback to be the most effective way to comprehensively listen and respond to the feedback received,
providing the most benefit to both the customers responding and our business.

Additionally, although satisfaction statistics are important, we believe the greatest value from these surveys is in uncovering the reasons behind the figures,
understanding, and learning from the customer’s experience.

As such, we’ve chosen to take a primarily telephone-based approach to our surveys, allowing us to build a rapport with the respondents and delve deeper into their perceptions of us to gain additional and actionable insight for improvement.

We also know this to be the most inclusive method to surveying our customers, as we’re missing email and mobile phone data for some of our lead tenants currently.

*1 – Whilst telephone is our primary approach, this will be supported by self-completion methods such as text/email
to improve inclusivity and accessibility. More details can be found under ‘How we collect the data in the survey’ section of this menu.

What is the Aspire Census?

Due to the size of our housing stock, we propose to take a sampling approach in line with the TSM guidance requirements.

* Where it is not possible to achieve this level of statistical accuracy (for example, providers with fewer than 1,000 dwelling units), employing a census approach is sufficient to meet this requirement.

How we collect the data in the survey

We utilise software called ‘CX Feedback’ for customer surveys, which allows us to track responses and complete surveys by a combination of telephone, text, and email.

• Invite attempt 1 – phone
• Invite attempt 2 – phone
• Invite attempt 3 – text/email (dependent on available contact data and recorded preferences)

Customers will also have the option of completing the survey via text or email, or requesting a call-back at a preferred time.

How we collect the data in the survey

We utilise software called ‘CX Feedback’ for customer surveys, which allows us to track responses and complete surveys by a combination of telephone, text, and email.

• Invite attempt 1 – phone
• Invite attempt 2 – phone
• Invite attempt 3 – text/email (dependent on available contact data and recorded preferences)

Customers will also have the option of completing the survey via text or email, or requesting a call-back at a preferred time.

Equalities and Inclusion

It is important that we make participation in the survey as accessible as possible. Identified barriers and solutions:

• Language: Telephone researchers use plain English; written instructions in clear language.
• Visual impairment: Telephone surveys reduce barriers; self-completion surveys support ‘read aloud’ functionality.
• Literacy: Telephone surveys remove this barrier; plain English used.
• Access to digital: Telephone surveys ensure inclusion; alternative options via text or email.

Customer Representation

It’s a requirement of the TSM regulation to ensure that the survey results are representative of our customer population.

This includes the following characteristics as identified by the TSM guidance:

• Stock type
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Building type
• Household or property size
• Geographical area

To achieve this, we are taking the following approach:

• Reviewing internal customer data to identify quality gaps and implementing an action plan for improvement.
• Utilising the ‘representation monitoring’ dashboard within CX Feedback to compare respondent demographics to the target population.
• Using this insight to target under-represented groups where needed.

For further details on representativeness, you can view the TSM Survey 2023/24: Representativeness of Sample.

Data Protection

A data protection assessment was carried out in January 2021 for our CX Feedback surveying software and activity.

This will be reviewed every three years to ensure compliance and data security best practices.

Results and Analysis

Dashboards

The primary method of displaying results is through live data visualisation dashboards. Other visualisation tools may be used to support static reports.

Calculations

The majority of the TSM questions are answered on a 5-point scale. Only responses selecting one of the top 2 options are classified as ‘satisfied’ or ‘agree’.

Those selecting the middle response will be included in calculations, while ‘don’t know’ or ‘not applicable’ responses will be excluded from performance calculations.

Confidentiality

Customer response data is kept confidential, and explicit consent is gathered during the survey for follow-up where necessary.

For telephone surveys, customers are asked at the beginning if they consent to participate. For self-completion surveys, clicking the link to proceed indicates consent.

Data Access

CX Feedback access is secure, requiring individual logins managed by the Business Intelligence team.

Permission settings within the software control user access, ensuring compliance with data security protocols.

Dissemination and Sharing of Results

Internal Reporting

Results and performance will be shared internally on a monthly basis through Performance Reports. These reports will be:

• Published on the Insight Hub for the entire organisation.
• Escalated to leadership and the Board through standard reporting channels.

Corporate KPIs for 2023/24 have been updated to include TSMs, ensuring transparency and accountability across leadership and the wider business.

External Reporting

As required by the regulator, results will be submitted annually by the Business Intelligence team.

Findings will also be published on the Aspire website and via other communication channels deemed appropriate by the marketing team.

Compliance

This reporting approach aligns with the Market Research Society Code of Conduct.

This compliance framework was last reviewed on 24/04/2024 and will be subject to an annual review.