This week is National Customer Service Week!
We’re passionate about delivering the best customer service at North Star and we’re proud to have high levels of tenant satisfaction. Our Customer Service Team’s call handling satisfaction for the month of August was 93%, while for the whole of 2023 Q1, 96.6% of our tenants were happy with our phone service. That puts us in the top quartile of social housing providers in the North East and Yorkshire!
To celebrate the week, and particularly Thursday’s theme of Customer Service as a Profession, we spoke to Ruth, one of our Customer Service Assistants, to find out more about what customer service means to our colleagues who are delivering it every day.
What does your customer service role at North Star entail?
We’re the first port of call for North Star tenants. We communicate and liaise with North Star staff and customers via multiple channels for many reasons. These can include:
- rent accounts
- repairs reporting
- antisocial behaviour report
- choice-based letting systems
- new-build properties
- planned maintenance.
What kind of help and support do you provide to your tenants?
We provide lots of different services in different areas for our tenants. In terms of rent, we take rent payments and we can investigate basic rent account queries with customers.
Naturally, we do a lot with repairs too. We’ll assess and log repairs, and we pursue updates on the status of repairs by speaking to the relevant contractors and arranging suitable appointments and solutions where required.
We take reports of antisocial behaviour, which we forward to, and liaise with, the relevant Housing Officer.
We find and share information regarding the choice-based letting systems and available properties, assisting customers who enquire with information on areas and where to apply and get further assistance.
We also look into information for our new-build properties, such as the type of properties being built and the location, and advise when they’ll be available and how they’ll be allocated.
What support does North Star give you to allow you to support your tenants?
What I really like about working at North Star is that the business empowers us to have all the tools and information we need to resolve tenants’ queries.
We receive training in other business areas, which gives us a better understanding of some more complex customer enquiries, such as housing and repairs.
We get regular updates from other teams on the work they’re carrying out and any communications sent to the tenants, which means that we have an awareness of everything that’s going on in the housing association in case customers ask about it.
We take resilience training, which is really helpful in this type of role. This training helps us support ourselves when we experience difficult calls, which ensures we stay strong and can handle uncomfortable conversations with customers etc. – it’s good for both us and our customers, because they can be comfortable knowing that we can navigate difficult conversations and situations with them.
