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About Denise Raine

Denise Raine is a Director of Acuity Ltd, and has specialised in tenant satisfaction and feedback research for more than 20 years.

Author Archive | Denise Raine

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Tenants and the digital divide: what is the role for landlords?

I’ve mentioned residents’ internet access before now in my blogs, usually in the context of this being a limiting factor for landlords who would like to move their satisfaction surveys online. But this isn’t the only reason for social landlords to be interested in digital inclusion for tenants: many are themselves channel shifting services online …..Read the full article »

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Little and often: a good approach to monitoring tenant satisfaction?

It used to be accepted wisdom that a wide-ranging satisfaction survey every two or three years was the best way to keep tabs on what your tenants are thinking. This remains best practice, but times are changing: some landlords have stopped doing them altogether (bad idea), while some are doing them yearly. That might be …..Read the full article »

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Happier tenants, better value for money: where do you want to be in 2018?

Listening to residents has been at the heart of my career for over 20 years now, and I believe recent events are going to make this an even more important activity for social housing providers. We will have to wait to find out whether the official Grenfell enquiry considers to what degree residents’ views were …..Read the full article »

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Why the job’s not done till you’ve told them about it

 (Vital housing research questions, and what to do with the answers part 4) So you’ve found out what’s depressing your resident satisfaction statistics, and you’ve got a plan. Actually, you’ve got more than a plan, you’ve been running a new system for six months or more. But your tenants don’t seem to be any happier. …..Read the full article »

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Keep in the (feedback) loop to ensure resident satisfaction and self-improvement are on track

 (Vital housing research questions, and what to do with the answers part 3) Recent events tell us that you cannot put enough stress on finding out what your residents think, both formally and informally. Resident surveys underpin your understanding of what’s going on with your services and your tenants, and it’s important to make them work …..Read the full article »

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A question of perception

 (Vital housing research questions, and what to do with the answers part 2) Opinion can be divided on HouseMark’s perception questions. Landlords often use them in surveys, but at the same time dismiss them as being woolly and not informative enough. At Acuity, we’re always testing how useful surveys actually are to our customers, so …..Read the full article »

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When yes or no just aren’t enough

(Vital housing research questions, and what to do with the answers part 1) One of the big disadvantages of postal surveys was that they rarely asked more than one open-ended question. And while one question can get fantastic answers (my favourite is “If there is one thing that your landlord could improve, what would that …..Read the full article »

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Put on that tin hat: why it’s time to ask questions of your dissatisfied residents

Your organisation does its best for residents, and it can be dispiriting when surveys come back showing a hard core of unhappy tenants. The last thing you might want to do is ask them more questions about your service – but it’s an important step to take, and will bring huge benefits if done well. …..Read the full article »

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Anonymity: is it the best policy?

Historically, surveys of tenants and residents have been done anonymously. So while the organisations carrying them out know who has said what, the landlord has no idea. While there were good reasons for doing things this way – everyone believed residents were less likely to complete surveys if answers could be traced back to them …..Read the full article »

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Meeting your needs: what happens during a consultation?

One of the best bits of my job is going out to see clients around the country. While there are many common issues, every single organisation – whether a housing association, a council or an arm’s-length management organisation (ALMO) – is different in its tenant mix and housing stock. The challenge – and satisfaction – is …..Read the full article »

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