2nd opinion: Care factor

ne of my jobs as a bishop is to meet every couple of years or so with each clergyman or woman, to see how things are going for them. After speaking at a couple of housing conferences on customer care recently, I imagined part of one such conversation proceeding on these lines: "I've been looking through the customer satisfaction returns from your last 50 weddings. You must be very pleased with the results: 82% overall satisfaction – and when I analysed the figures in more detail they were even better.

"On all but four occasions you arrived within an hour either side of the specified time, and only twice did you fail to turn up on the correct day.

"You managed to complete 44 of the marriages successfully first time round, and all but one of the rest were legally valid after your second attempt.

"Only three times did you arrive without the equipment you needed and there were just six weddings where you had to stop work to phone a colleague on your mobile for advice on what to do next."

Now, I hope this imaginary conversation sounds appropriately far-fetched, but translate it from a wedding context to a housing association customer satisfaction survey and it seems all too familiar.

We pat ourselves on the back because most of our tenants are satisfied with most of what we do for most of the time, but we conveniently ignore just how much anger, frustration and distress our tenants suffer when we get things wrong.

Whether or not we have a capital stake in our home, all of us have a great deal of emotional investment in it. When something goes wrong the effect on us is far beyond the actual practical problem.

As a vicar, I discovered many years ago that the distress caused by a burglar is much more than the financial loss or the effort required to replace stolen goods and clean up mess.

Getting a repair job wrong on a property might not be quite as drastic in its consequences as a vicar failing to turn up for a wedding, but in the housing world we underestimate at our peril the very real distress that our shortcomings cause.

Above all, they send a clear message that what is important to the tenant is a matter of minimal significance to us.

This perpetuates the "welfare mentality" that is still a long way from being driven out of social housing, and thereby it fails to challenge the stigmatising of our sector that must be overcome if we are to continue to provide a sustainable service in the future.

So, let me offer you a challenge.

Rather than hide behind figures that suggest the majority of tenants are satisfied, let's make much stronger efforts to reduce the percentage that are not. When we make a mistake we must correct it quickly and, where appropriate, compensate generously for the emotional as well as practical consequences of our failings.

And if I can't persuade you to do that for the sake of tenants, there is a strong case from simple self-interest.

Just as the vicar who only gets weddings right 82% of the time will soon find his or her services are not required by couples, the landlord who is content with similar levels of satisfaction will also discover that tenants will find their way to other housing providers.

Whether you work for a church or a housing association, the customer care message remains simple: "love them or lose them."