Learning from complaints – what you told us during winter and early spring

Handling your complaints can be a tricky but we understand that when something goes wrong, you want to understand why and what we’re going to do to put things right.
We do too, which is why we aim to learn something from each and every complaint that we receive.
Very soon, we’ll be publishing our annual performance report for how we’ve handled your complaints over 2023-24, but to keep you in the loop for the last few months, here’s a look at what we learned from your complaints between January and March 2024.
Responding to you
One of the most common themes of your feedback, is that it’s very frustrating when we don’t get back to you in the timeframes you expect.
We’ve been working really hard to correct this and, even though we’re still seeing a high number of complaints, we’re pleased that we’ve been able to increase the speed at which we’re responding to them.
Between January and March, we responded to just over 88% of stage one complaints on time. Disappointingly, 115 cases were late and outside our targets. However, since then we’ve introduced new reporting so we can monitor cases more effectively. Since April, almost 92% of stage one complaints have been sent on time.
We think this shows we’re making good progress. Just under a quarter of stage one complaints were escalated to stage two, showing how committed we are to solving issues as quickly as we can.
While we saw an increase in complaints in the last three months, we’re comfortable that these numbers reflect that our processes are easy for customers to access, in line with Housing Ombudsman Service guidance.
Complex cases
Some complaints require more attention than others, and we’ve been reviewing how we handle these to try and find solutions to those more complicated cases.
Greater collaboration with colleagues across our organisation is helping us to identify resources, people and ideas that could find resolutions to these complaints.
Estate services
We understand the impact that having clean and tidy communal areas can have on you, which is why it’s really disappointing when you tell us that your grass hasn’t been cut or we’ve missed some cleaning.
We’ve listened to what you’ve told us and we’ve done a lot of work to make changes. This includes appointing a new Estates Services Manager to oversee how we deliver these sorts of services.
However, in the last three months we’ve seen complaints for services like this fall. Whilst it’s great that we’re seeing improvements in this area, we know that there’s still work to do.
Our new estate services reporting tool is making it easier for customers to tell us about the things we’ve missed, helping us and our contractors to get on top of the issues faster. What’s more, the new tool allows customers to get updates as to the status of their report, helping everyone to know what’s happening.
Making a complaint
If you want to make a complaint, then there are a number of ways you can do so.
You can:
- Talk to a member of our team
- Visit our website and complete a form
- Call us on 01202 319 119
- Email customerfeedback@stonewater.org
- Send us a direct message on X (Twitter) or Facebook
OR write to us at:
Stonewater Suite C, Lancaster House Grange Business Park Enderby Road Whetstone Leicester LE8 6EP
You can find out more about making a complaint on our website here.