Introduction to Swan’s service

It is now my second year as the Executive Director of Customer Experience – a role created to ensure that we deliver brilliant customer care.

You told us in 2020/21 that we needed to improve our customer services, particularly around repairs, lettings and complaint handling. In 2021/22, our teams have focused resources on making improvements across these areas that you identified, as well as working to improve your overall experience.

This has meant listening to you more closely so that we understand what we need to do to get things right for you, first time. Between December 2021 and March 2022 we sent out 1,929 surveys to customers, with 227 customers responding. Thank you for this valuable feedback. We continue to work with the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) to gather some of this feedback and - most importantly - monitor our progress and compare our performance to other organisations to really understand how we are doing.

We have also focused on using what we learned during the Covid-19 pandemic about using digital services to get our customers involved in shaping our services. Our involved customers can now attend meetings online or in-person to make sharing feedback easier and more convenient for you. We have made improvements to our MySwan portal, which customers can use to check their balance, pay their rent and make requests online, at a time that suits them best. Earlier in 2022 we launched a new online platform called ‘Count Me In’ for our customers to share their feedback via short surveys and online polls – and to read what changes we have made based on the feedback that you share.

It has been good to be able to get back to delivering some of our services face-to-face. I am proud to report that in 2021/22 we delivered a total of 29 community projects, many of them in-person, with nearly 2,000 customers taking part in one or more of these. These projects ranged from Holiday Hunger clubs and nature activities, to employment workshops and sessions to tackle knife crime. Our Care and Specialist Accommodation team provided more than 280 activities for our customers within supported housing with customers benefitting from a range of individual and group activities over the year. More than just bricks and mortar, delivering these activities for our customers has always been important to Swan and we will continue to support you, your family and your communities in this way.

I hope that you enjoy reading the report and I welcome any ideas that you have about how we can deliver an even better experience for you. Get in touch by emailing involvement@swan.org.uk

Pete Morley-Watts Executive Director of Customer Experience