96% found our contact centre staff to be polite and friendly
91% said they were helpful and knowledgeable
92% said they were overall satisfied with the support they received.
53% of customers are now registered to the MyAster portal
130,438 activities were logged via MyAster, including 99,663 payments and 10,315 repairs
84% of customers say they are satisfied with the service provided by MyAster.
There’s a great variety of ways we have made available for you to get in touch. Overall digital enquiries – via the live chat function we introduced in October 2021, MyAster, our online enquiry form or by e-mail – now make up 43% of total customer contact.
We are currently working on an improved repairs service where we have more choice on offer of what is available to raise via MyAster. This will include all remaining routine repairs, and opening up our communal repairs offering to both home ownership and rented accommodation customers.
MyAster has been recognised for excellent customer service and was a finalist in the Institute of Customer Service’s ‘Customer Satisfaction Innovation’ award and shortlisted for the UK Housing ‘Digital Landlord of the Year’ award.
Find out more about…:
Financial Wellbeing Customer Accounts Tenancy sustainment Modernising our customer services
calls (down 5.7%)
204891
emails (up 16.5%)
66789
live chats (this is the first full year Aster has offered this service)
20999
Getting in touch
Our contact centre received:
Tackling condensation and mould
Over the winter months, we saw the highest number of reported incidents of condensation and mould we had ever received within our homes. The rise in reports happened right across the housing sector following media and political scrutiny of condensation and mould in social housing. Our stock condition survey also helped highlight issues we were previously unaware of.
We look into every case of condensation and mould and increased the number of surveyors we employ so we could assess every home and agree if any work was needed. We remain in contact with each customer affected by condensation and mould for a 12-month period to check the issue has gone away. We’ve also provided advice on how to stop mould appearing through a variety of customer communications. We also have a workstream, where a team of colleagues are making sure we’re supporting customers who experience mould and condensation.
Servicing and compliance
A total of 61,579 servicing and compliance checks completed, including:
- 21,676 fire safety visits
- 8,307 water hygiene visits
- 3,017 lift and lifting equipment inspections
- 22,631 gas services completed - 99.95% of our homes have a valid gas safety compliance record
- 5,948 electrical test and inspections.
Neighbourhood maintenance
We carried out over 41,000 jobs to maintain neighbourhoods this year. To find out about some of the refurbishments and enhancements we have carried out to improve homes and their neighbourhoods, click here.
Neighbourhood inspections
We completed over 10,000 neighbourhood inspections during the year
Nearly 20,000 actions were completed including:
- fire safety inspections
- dealing with and reporting fly tipping
- carrying out communal repairs
We supported 337 families move into a home that was more suitable for them through the mutual exchange scheme
We helped keep our communities safe by resolving 1,046 cases of anti-social behaviour (ASB) and domestic abuse – some 97% of all cases raised.
Find out more about how we helped customers and communities stay safe here.
80%
customer found the repairs process easy
84%
were satisfied they were kept informed during the repairs process
89%
were satisfied with the quality of repair
86%
were satisfied overall with the repair
87%
repairs completed on time
Our repairs service
We know that carrying out repairs in your home quickly and efficiently is important to you, so we’re continuing to look at how our highly skilled trades people and supply chain can work with us to deliver a reliable service every day. By focusing on responding to what is needed, we’ll make sure we’re giving you the service you expect and value for money. Over the year we saw the number of repairs we carried out increase by 11.56%.
While we expect demand to remain high next year, we’ll remain focused on completing repairs that get logged, reducing the number of overdue jobs we have and continuing to address issues around mould and condensation.
Over 120,000 total repairs completed – these are any works raised by customers considered as emergency, urgent or routine repairs. 76% of these were completed by our trade colleagues, and 87% were completed on time:
- 11,856 emergency repairs completed
- 23,620 carpentry repairs
- 22,046 gas repairs
- 21,838 plumbing repairs
- 19,381 electrical repairs.
Other planned works that took place during the year included:
- 1,500 minor works jobs completed
- 29,775 grounds maintenance visits completed
- 31,021 communal cleaning visits
- 2,273 arboriculture planned maintenance works
- 3,585 response surveying jobs completed.
Our teams carried out work in 1,495 homes when they became empty, to make them ready for new customers to move into. We call these 'voids homes' and this work allows us to make sure we’re providing a safe place to call home as quickly as possible for people.
We re-let 1,560 existing homes during the year – it took an average of 26.5 days from when the home became empty to when a new family moved in.
526 of the total homes we let were new homes – it took an average of 9.6 days from when the home became ready to when a new family moved in.
71% of new customers moving into our homes told us they found the process of moving into the home easy – 81% were satisfied that it met their needs.
For more achievements from our lettings team during the 2022/23 financial year please click here.
A total of 466 homes were sold for shared ownership (where a customer buys a share in their home and pays rent on the rest).
131 were sold via open market sale (where homes were sold to private customers).
We built over 1,300 new homes during 2022/23 – the most homes we've ever built in a year – and 39% higher than the previous year.
Inside Housing magazine placed us seventh in their annual Biggest Builder survey for 2023, recognising the top 50 biggest builders for completed new builds. This is up from 14th the previous year.
for market rent (where rent is costed at similar prices to other homes in the area)
1
homes for affordable and social rent (which are more affordable than renting on the private rental market)
1897
Our customer performance – key figures from the year
Please note these figures exclude C&C, Enham Trust and EBHT.
A total of over 2,000 homes were let or relet for rent during 2022/23
These homes included:
We now own and manage over 36,000 homes across the south of England and London. This figure has increased following our recent mergers with Central and Cecil (C&C), who own and manage around 2,000 homes in London, and Enham Trust, who own over 300 homes in the village of Enham Alamein, Hampshire.
We are committed to providing customers with a modern, reliable customer service. In this section, you can hear from Jean Dalziel, Customer Services Operations Director, who reflects on our performance over the past year.
Our
customer
service
performance