Our Service Standards

We aim to be the best at everything we do. We have a continuous programme of training to make sure our staff achieve a high standard of service.

Our aims and values

We want to provide all our customers with high quality services.
We have set out some of the standards we expect our staff to keep to when dealing with you. We have set some of these out in Complaints.
We are also committed to making sure we deliver services to you in the most cost effective way. This is known as ’best value’. To achieve this we have a continuous programme of service reviews. In these reviews we:

Look critically at how we do things;
Compare our performance with other associations;
Consult with our tenants and other customers; and
Develop plans for improving the service.

The Tenants Guarantee

This is a set of principles and minimum standards of service that all housing associations registered with the Department of Social Development for Northern Ireland must follow. The Department makes regular visits to housing associations to make sure that they are keeping to the standards set out in the Guarantee.

Listening to your comments

We put a very high value on tenant participation. This enables tenants to have a say in how we do things. Tenants can do this through talking to or becoming members of the Tenant Forum. Also, we include tenants on our service review working groups. See Involving tenants.
We carry out surveys from time to time to find out how well you think we are doing in different areas of our service. These surveys may be done face-to-face or over the phone, or we may send you a questionnaire by post.
In addition to the surveys we do, we are keen to hear from you at any time with suggestions or ideas about how we can improve our services. It is also useful for us to hear about what we are doing right.

If we get it wrong

We know that there may be times when things go wrong and we do not do our best by you, our tenant. We want to know if you are not happy and want you to give us the opportunity to put things right. We also have a clear and open process for handling complaints. We recommend you follow our complaint steps to ensure that we deal with any problem efficiently and fairly. See Complaints.
If we have failed to provide services that you pay for through service charges, we will, under certain circumstances, arrange for you to receive some money back. See Rent and charges for details.

We are committed to listening to our customers’ views about the services we provide and we continually work to improve our services and systems of management.

Our staff will always:

Tell you their name when they meet or talk to you over the phone;
Be polite, fair, respectful and considerate, and deal with your enquiry efficiently and as quickly as possible;
Be trained to a high standard; and
Deal with any personal information we have about you by following the government data protection requirements and our confidentiality policy.

When visiting you, we will:

Always carry identification;
Make sure all our contractors carry identification, are polite, tidy, courteous and consult you about when they will come to work in your home;
Give you reasonable warning if we need to change or cancel an appointment; and
Leave a calling card if we find you are not in.

When you visit us:

Reception rooms will be clean, warm and tidy and have easy access;
Up-to-date leaflets, posters and information will be easily available;
We will aim to see you within five minutes of your appointment time; and
We will use a private interview room, if you prefer this.

Telephone calls

We will try to answer phone calls within eight rings.
If we can’t respond fully at the first point of contact, we will arrange for a Housing Officer or Maintenance Officer to contact you.
When our offices are closed a recorded message will give you the office opening hours and tell you what action to take if you have an emergency.
If the person you want to talk to is unable to take your call, we will tell you how soon they will get back to you.

Letters and e-mails

We will:

Acknowledge a letter or e-mail from you within three working days and reply in full within a further ten working days (if we can’t give a full reply within that time we will let you know); and
Write to you in clear jargon-free language.

Equality and diversity

We will treat everyone fairly and equally, but know that everyone is different and has different needs. We welcome these differences and will do all we can to respect and encourage them. We will:

Provide information about our services in the best format for you, including in large print, on audio tape or in languages other than English; and
Arrange for an interpreter to help if you need one.