Our latest Customer Annual Report
I’m pleased to be able to share our customer annual report for 2021/22, which includes updates about our work to provide safe, well-maintained homes, and modern reliable customer services.
We’ve taken a slightly different approach with our report this year – it’s designed to be more interactive and engaging, and we hope you like it. This past financial year has once again been challenging for us all, but we’ve been able to make progress with national COVID-19 restrictions easing.
The rising cost of living is arguably the greatest issue now facing many of our customers, and we’re working closely to provide support and guidance where necessary. Whether that’s financial wellbeing support through our charity the Aster Foundation, or signposting customers to community services available, our teams have conversations every day to help customers manage their tenancy and get the support they need.
It goes without saying that our customer groups are pivotal in our decision making and we wouldn’t be able to make the necessary improvements to our service without their support.
We’ve continued to make it as easy as possible for customers to get in touch with us and manage their home. Over half of all customers are now signed up to our online portal MyAster, and since we launched our Live Chat service in October 2021, they have been telling us that they value having a greater range of accessible ways to speak to us.
Despite the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve still been pushing forward with enhancing our services. We also launched a major piece of work just before the end of the financial year, with a survey of all of our homes to identify where future improvements are needed. It’s a huge exercise and will provide the essential data we need to be able to plan our repairs and maintenance programmes over the coming years. We’re one of only a few housing associations to be doing this.
We’re focused on making sure every customer gets a service that best suits their community and neighbourhood needs. We’ve recently made some operational changes to ensure a greater local focus, meaning teams working in the area around their home can better understand how we can provide support.
In January we welcomed London-based housing trust Central and Cecil (C&C), who provide affordable housing and care for over-55s living in London, to the Group. We are delighted to be partnering and bringing together our collective resources and expertise for the benefit of our colleagues and customers.
You can read plenty more about our year in our Customer Annual Report, by clicking here.
We’ve also summarised our highlights in this infographic.
Back to latest blog listings
