Compliments and complaints

Our customers are at the heart of what we do. To enable us to deliver a great customer experience we welcome all your feedback, both positive and negative. This helps us to know when we get things right and also where we need to improve.

Compliments

It’s great to hear when we have done well. This means we can make sure to keep doing it and share good practices across our team. We’ll also pass any compliments on to those employees that have given great service, so they know when they’re doing well.

Your feedback
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    CHP has been very good to me. You have always kept in touch through frequent communication  with your tenants. In addition CHP is always ready to address any issues that may arise concerning the property. CHP has also made me feel valued as a tenant, by involving me  in decision making, through answering questionnaires. Lastly, I like the CHP property I live in.

    CHP customer

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    I'm delighted with the house and it's condition and Im very satisfied with the help I have received from you so far. All matters have been dealt with in a prompt and professional way. Thank you. Have a great week

    CHP customer

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    From beginning to end the service was brilliant. The workers were on time every day, they were polite and friendly and always tidied up after too , the quality of work was also outstanding, I'm very happy with the service from both the council and the subcontractors. 5 star.

    CHP customer

Complaints

We understand that sometimes things go wrong. As soon as we're aware that you feel unhappy with the level of service we’ve given, we'll contact you and take the necessary steps to put things right quickly.

If you’re unhappy with the service we’ve delivered you can open a complaint. You can do this by completing the Your Feedback form. Alternatively you can:

  • call us on 0300 555 0500;
  • email us at feedback@chp.org.uk;
  • write to us or visit our office at Myriad House, 33 Springfield Lyons Approach, Chelmsford, CM2 5LB;
  • message us on social media.

We’ll acknowledge your complaint in writing within five working days and take your complaint through our two-stage process. This is set out in detail in our Complaint Handling and Resolution Policy.pdf[pdf] 213KB. You can find an Easy Read version of this policy below.

All formal complaints are handled by one team. They work closely with colleagues across the business to make sure we do everything necessary to investigate the issue in detail and keep you informed.

Lessons learnt

Here are examples of where we’ve used our customers’ voices to embed lessons learnt into our daily service delivery, identified through the learning from our customer panels and via our complaints process.

We use all feedback as a positive source of information to continuously improve the services we provide and our customers’ experience. We’ll monitor service requests and formal complaints, analysing trends and learning from feedback.

You said We did
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A customer told us that we’d contacted them about rent arrears, despite already having an arrangement in place with us. The customer also told us that we’d left a voicemail that wasn’t empathetic about the arrears. 

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We completed training with our Income Team to remind them how important it is to update our records when arrangements are put in place. We also emphasised being mindful of the language we use when leaving voicemails of this nature. 
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A customer reported to us that nobody had inspected their smoke alarm in their home for some time.

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Our Building Safety Team have implemented a new programme to make sure all smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are checked during the annual gas safety checks in customers’ homes. 
alt="" Following feedback, we acknowledged that we didn’t provide regular communication after receiving reports of anti-social behaviour (ASB). alt=""

We reminded our Districts Team to follow our policy for creating an action plan to investigate the ASB report with detailed next steps, and to maintain regular communication with the customer. 
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Following feedback, we acknowledged that there was no automated process in place for checking on outstanding repairs for our heating contractor, Aaron Services.

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A report has been created that tells us which customers are without heating or hot water. This is shared with our Repairs Team on a frequent basis so we can better monitor outstanding repairs of this kind.

 

Housing Ombudsman Service

The Housing Ombudsman Service is set up by law to look at complaints about housing organisations registered in their scheme. Their service is free, independent and impartial.

The role of the Ombudsman is to resolve disputes, including awarding compensation or providing other remedies when appropriate, and to support effective landlord tenant dispute resolution by others. Residents and landlords can contact the Ombudsman at any time for support.

Find out more about what they do and how they work.

A fair approach | Complaint handling code

The Housing Ombudsman published a new Complaint Handling Code in July 2020, setting out good practice that will allow landlords like us to respond to complaints effectively and fairly. Following a review one year after it was introduced, the Ombudsman updated the code to strengthen provisions to support a positive complaint handling culture.

We’ve reviewed our complaints process to make sure we’re compliant. You can download our self-assessment for more information:

For more information on how we manage customer feedback, please see our leaflet, A guide to giving us feedback.pdf. 

Compensation and goodwill gesture

We aim to provide an excellent service, but recognise that sometimes we don’t meet these standards. If we fail to meet the level of service set out in our published standards, we’ll apologise and aim to put things right. At times this may involve paying compensation to you or making a goodwill gesture. You can read about our approach, when goodwill gestures will be paid, and how an amount is calculated in our Compensation and Goodwill Gesture Policy[pdf] 206KB.

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    Join a feedback group

    Have your say and get involved in important decisions about our services
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    Customer Review Panel

    A panel of customers who scrutinise our performance and help us to improve key services
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    Contact us

    Find out the ways you can contact us