Greenoak Estate Walkabout – getting to know our customers

You might have seen recently that we've joined forces with Greenoak Housing Association who manage homes in Surrey and Sussex. This partnership has given us the opportunity to combine knowledge and understanding of our customers and share expertise to help develop and improve our services.

On Monday 10 July, Greenoak colleagues and Board members carried out an annual estate walkabout to visit four schemes in Woking. The team spoke to customers to get their feedback and understand their experiences.

We'd like to thank the 32 customers who spoke to us, offering some fantastic, positive feedback and some suggestions for improvement. Some of the questions we asked included:

Do you feel the merger has gone well?

Out of the 32 customers, 22 of these said that they had felt the merger had gone well or that they had not noticed much of a change.

Do you feel you have been well informed during the process?

Making sure our customers are kept informed of any changes is very important to us and we're pleased that 90% of the customers involved told us that they were kept well informed throughout the process.

What improvements would you like to see from Greenoak/Stonewater?

Customers informed us of various improvements they'd like to see, mostly relating to their own homes and communal areas. We've sent all feedback to our relevant departments to look at and we're hoping we can make some really positive, customer-led changes to improve our services.

Some examples include:

• decorating in communal areas
• new handrails on stairs
• new kitchens and bathrooms
• general repairs and maintenance

Would you be interested in becoming an engaged customer?

We were joined by Kim, our Customer Engagement Coordinator, to discuss the different ways customers can get involved with us and we're really excited that 13 of the 32 customers said they're interested in finding out more. Kim will follow up with each customer to discuss the opportunities in more detail.

On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with your home? (1 being dissatisfied and 10 being highly satisfied)

Customer feedback is important to us and without it, we wouldn't know what our customers need from us. It was great to talk to everyone and we're so pleased that a large proportion of customers gave us a score of 10! The average score from the 32 customers is 7.5 out of 10.

We finished the day with lunch and cake and really enjoyed spending time with our customers!