Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, so who better to tell us how we can improve?
We listen to feedback to make sure we’re delivering great services. This includes how we report on our performance. That’s why we created our latest Customer Annual Report with a panel of customers who helped agree the design, content and format of the report.
Our customer panel said: “We worked with Abri to create a report that we think covers what customers want to hear, and is centred on how Abri is performing and has done to support customers this year.
“We felt the report should focus on what has been achieved this year, how the business allocates financial spend in our homes and communities, as well as how customer feedback has been adopted and has made positive change, and more about opportunities to shape services through Abri’s resident involvement offer.”
The customer panel included Jeanette, a shared owner from Southampton, Lorraine, a rental customer from Fordingbridge, Shanie, a rental customer from Portsmouth, John, an independent member from Lymington, and Sarah, an independent member from Brockenhurst. The report was also supported by our Regional Customer Panel Chairs and Resident Scrutiny Group.
The panel group met with our Communications and Design leads three times to create the report, starting with a planning session at the very beginning of its development to consider what customers would want from this year’s report. We reviewed other housing association’s customer performance reports, and we cast a critical eye over last year’s report to see what we could do better this year.
In this year’s design, the operational performance figures are now front and centre, which really helps highlight key insights. We reviewed the imagery to make sure it’s relevant and reflects our diverse customers, and included more opportunities for customers to have to their say or how to get involved in shaping Abri’s services.
Once the content had been developed around the themes of the Tenant Satisfaction Measures, it was our customer group’s idea to move tenancy support and cost of living content into its own section, to avoid ending the report on complaints which didn’t sit well with them.
It was a truly collaborative effort, and our customer panel shaped the report into a format we’re hoping other customers will find insightful in understanding our performance. We’ve included a feedback form for readers to have their say on the report’s style and content, which will be considered in future customer reports Abri publishes in 2025 and beyond.