Our 2017-18 Customer Report has been published, and is available to read on the Customers page of our website.
With a round up of what's been happening at Advance in 2017-18, information about services and plenty of customer stories it makes for a good read. Also included is information about what Value for Money means at Advance and an outline of our Strategic Plan.
The report contains a breakdown of results from our recent customer survey (see below) and information on how customers can get more involved in Advance through the Advance Collective.
Highlights from the customer survey include:
91% of customers are very or quite happy with the service that they get from us, which is consistent with the 2017 results and an increase from the previous two years. This surpasses our 2020 target for customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, 84% of customers felt that Advance staff always or nearly always do a good job, whilst 87% of customers would recommend our services to someone else if they needed them.
Overall the results suggested that we are making positive progress over time and in relation to our long term strategic objectives and targets.
The survey did however identify opportunities for improvement. Whilst 83% of customers said they knew how to complain, a third said that they only ‘sometimes’ or ‘never’ feel comfortable making a complaint. The results also suggest that we could be doing more to empower our customers to be engaged citizens as 52% of customers said they hadn’t been involved in a local community activity in the last year.
Of those customers who receive Housing services from Advance 93% were happy with the quality of their home. Although a very positive result, and an increase from last year's result, we are not complacent and have teams of surveyors and contractors, all of whom have received safeguarding training from us, who ensure our properties are kept in good repair and meet current legislative standards.
The survey and its questions were designed with customers. Putting customers at the heart of the survey helps to ensure that responses are meaningful and provide a clear picture of where we were doing well and where things could be improved.
Overall we are delighted with this year’s customer survey results. We take meaningful customer involvement and engagement seriously and have set ambitious targets in our Strategic Plan 2017-20.
If customers would like a printed copy of the report they can request one by speaking to a member of staff, or contacting Customer Engagement at customerengagement@advanceuk.org
The report is available in Plain English and Easy Read.