Complaints and improvements
We are grateful to the customers who take the time to share their views on NCHA’s work through our independent customer satisfaction surveys. Those responses are submitted to the Regulator of Social Housing. Along with own performance management data, they tell us what’s working for customers – and where improvements are needed. Below you can read about some of the key areas we are currently focusing on.
View information about recent complaints, including our annual complaints performance review.
We publish regular updates on the improvements we're making around the business as a result of your feedback:
Making improvements
Handling complaints
Last year, 46.5% of customers who rent our homes were satisfied with how we handled their complaint, which is a slight improvement from the previous year which was 46.1%. Satisfaction among shared owners was 30.8%, another slight improvement on 2024/25 which was 30.3%.
While performance has remained stable and improved slightly for shared owners, we know these satisfaction levels are not where we want them to be, and we're committed to improving the way we handle complaints.
We're continuously reviewing and strengthening our approach. This includes a recent scrutiny review of complaints that progress from Stage 1 to Stage 2, helping us better understand why customers feel the need to escalate their complaint and identify opportunities to resolve issues earlier. We have also established a Learning from Complaints and Insight Steering Group, which is now entering its second year. The group brings together senior decision-makers from across the organisation to review themes, track actions and ensure learning from complaints leads to real improvements in our services.
To help us manage the increasing number of complaints being seen across the housing sector, we've expanded our Customer Resolution Team and are continuing to invest in training for colleagues across the organisation. This helps ensure investigations are thorough, fair and consistent, while supporting colleagues to identify root causes and put things right more effectively the first time.
We're also exploring the introduction of a dedicated aftercare role within the Customer Resolution Team. This role would focus on tracking actions we've promised to customers following a complaint and keeping customers updated until those actions are fully completed.
Alongside this, we've placed a strong focus on improving the quality of Stage 2 complaint responses. We now work more closely with managers across the business and hold review meetings before responses are submitted to identify risks, improve quality and ensure the right outcomes are being delivered.
Our aim is not only to handle complaints well when things go wrong, but to learn from them, improve our services and give customers greater confidence that we'll listen, act and put things right.
Shared owners
Last year, 55.7% of our shared owners were satisfied with the overall service they received from us. This is lower than the 59.0% satisfaction rate recorded in 2024/25. We're taking action to better understand the needs of our shared owners and improve the services and support we provide.
We know satisfaction among our shared owners and leaseholders isn't where we want it to be. We've spent time looking at the feedback we've received to better understand what's causing the most frustration.
What we've heard is that concerns are often linked to service charges, understanding what customers are paying for, whether services represent good value for money, and clarity about who is responsible for different repairs and maintenance costs.
In response, we're bringing together teams from across NCHA to improve these areas. We'll be focusing on the quality of work carried out in communal areas, making sure customers receive better information about the services they pay for, and providing clearer explanations about responsibilities for repairs and maintenance.
We'll also be working more closely with our contractors to improve communication and service standards. This includes making sure customers know when work is taking place, such as window cleaning, what work has been completed, and what they can expect from the services they are paying for.
We've also heard from new homeowners that defects are a key source of dissatisfaction. We're working hard to improve this experience by building clearer processes with developers from the earliest stages of a scheme, so there is a shared understanding of responsibilities once a home has been handed over. We now have a dedicated Aftercare Officer whose role is to coordinate defects with developers and contractors on behalf of homeowners, and we're already seeing positive results from this approach.
Finally, we're reviewing the information and communications we send to shared owners and leaseholders to make sure they are clear, easy to understand and provide the information people need. Our aim is to make it easier for customers to understand their charges, know what services they're receiving, and have confidence that any issues will be dealt with quickly and effectively.
Repairs
Last year, 75.4% of customers who rent our homes were satisfied with our overall repairs service. While this is lower than the 80.1% recorded in 2024/25, we're taking action to improve the repairs experience for our customers.
Over the coming months, we'll be reducing the number of overdue repairs by increasing capacity in our teams, improving how work is planned and making greater use of specialist contractors where needed. We're also improving the way repairs are diagnosed so that the right person is assigned to the job first time, helping us avoid delays and repeat visits.
We're strengthening our appointment scheduling processes to make repairs more reliable and reduce missed or delayed appointments. At the same time, we'll be improving communication with customers, providing more regular updates and making sure people know what's happening with their repair and when they can expect work to be completed.
We're also introducing new systems and processes to help us better manage repairs to make sure repairs are completed to the expected standard, including where and how we buy the supplies we need to do a good job.
Alongside these changes, we're simplifying the overall repairs journey so that it’s easier for customers, and more efficient for our teams. We'll continue to monitor our performance closely, learn from customer feedback and use what we learn to keep improving our service.
Our aim is to provide a repairs service that is quicker, more reliable, easier to access and keeps customers informed throughout the process.
Communal areas
73.3% of customers who rent our homes and 47.2% of home owners told us they are satisfied with how we keep communal areas clean and well maintained. This is a decrease compared to last year, down 1.5% for renters and 1.5% for home owners.
We know this is an area where we need to do better. We're taking a more proactive approach to improving customer satisfaction with our communal areas by strengthening both our insight gathering and quality assurance processes. We carry out six-monthly surveys with customers to understand their experiences of communal services and identify where improvements are needed. We're also an active member of HQN's Estate Services Benchmarking Club, which allows us to compare our performance with other housing providers, share best practice and learn from the wider sector. In addition, our care home cleaning contract is performing well and continues to deliver improvements in service quality.
Over the coming months, we'll build on this work by introducing a new NCHA communal services grading template to provide a more consistent assessment of our communal areas. We also plan to recruit members to our Inspection Panel who will carry out quarterly inspections alongside NCHA colleagues and contractors. These inspections will focus on areas where customers have raised concerns or where data, including complaints, customer feedback, site inspections, surveys and Tenant Satisfaction Measures, suggests there may be opportunities for improvement. This will help ensure customer voices are at the heart of how we monitor and improve our communal services.
