Engagement with customers is an integral part of business. It gives your residents an opportunity to shape service delivery. Understanding the needs of tenants will help you deliver the right services. Delivering and demonstrating value for money is key and will become even more important in the future.

There is more to this than just economic value. Most registered providers deliver social value for money to the community. Customer satisfaction has always been, and will remain, one of the crucial judges of success. There are clear benefits to organisational reputation. As landlords become more commercial the perception and standing of the organisation will be important – many landlords are getting to grips with concepts such as brand and the net promoter score. We all know that satisfied customers make for satisfied employees and vice versa. There are clear financial incentives, research shows that the most dissatisfied residents take up a disproportionate share of resources. Low satisfaction results in high service use and more complaints. These cost an organisation in terms of reputation and resources. Higher satisfaction rates are associated with fewer contacts and higher customer retention – this operation costs less to service.

And if for no other reasons there is always the social value – better homes, better services. It improves people’s lives!