Ignoring Residents
An alarming trait for any service provider would be the sin of ignoring their customers. This is an even bigger sin when your neglect and failure to respond (and act) affects peoples homes and lives.
What do we mean by ignoring customers? To be fair to GreenSquareAccord it is important to have a baseline, an agreed timeframe for which they agree to respond by.
When raising an official complaint via the customer service team there is a seven working day response time. This isn’t outlined on their Compliments and complaints page, however when you call the office to establish why you haven’t heard back after a week they will inform you that it’s actually a seven working day response. A two week response time when raising a complaint.
All other emails into the Customer Service team have an agreed turn around response time of two working days, as outlined in their official automatic response:
Thank you for your email
Your enquiry has reached our Customer Service Team. We will aim to respond within two working days to let you know what will happen next.
If you have an emergency, please call 0300 111 7000
Kind regards
Customer Services
And it’s clear from the text that this isn’t an agreement, they only ‘aim’ to respond within this time. Let’s not confuse this for a resolution, this is just a response and an acknowledgment of your email.
As we’ve already established in the email examples on our ‘Customer Journey Via Email’ page this is seldom the case.
Here are a selection of incidents that have left residents of GreenSquareAccord feeling ignored and neglected.
Castle Mead Estate - Trowbridge (Wiltshire)
An ongoing dispute between the residents in Trowbridge and GreenSquareAccord over the maintenance of the estate.
As reported in the Gazette & Herald many residents had made numerous complaints to GreenSquareAccord over the lack of maintenance and groundwork being carried out across their properties, which is also an issue for the residents in Oxford - Lucas Remy & Maureen Christian House.
Under the banner of GreenSquare Estates, GreenSquareAccord manage and charge a fee for maintaining all of the public open spaces within the Castle Mead Estate.
Castle Mead consists of approximately 650 homes with residents paying and estate rental charge of £111.36 yet residents feel they are not ‘getting value for money’.
As reported in the Gazette & Herald:
One resident, Stewart Benford, said: “The new GreenSquare CEO refuses point blank to engage with us or fix the issues. If we don’t pay we get sent threats of being taken to court.
"GreenSquare have stipulated they will ban me from sending emails if I continue to complain.
“Our MP can confirm he has had a considerable amount of emails from residents constantly calling out poor work by GreenSquare. We are stuck with an unregulated scheme not fit for purpose.
“I have again asked the CEO of GreenSquare to attend the site but to date have received no commitment to do so.”
Bullying by GreenSquare and making threats ‘to ban people from sending emails’ and blocking email addresses is another tacit employed by GreenSquareAccord and will be covered in an upcoming article in Companywide Issues.
Andrew Rossiter, estates services manager at GreenSquare, said: "We always take complaints from residents seriously.”
In another upcoming article we look at some internal communications which highlight how GreenSquareAccord really view complaints and how they hide behind them.
Andrew Rossiter continues "Our customer care team has been in regular contact with Mr Benford over the past few months and has been working closely with him to respond to the issues he has raised with us.
As we know from GreenSquareAccords communications to residents in Oxford regular contact can often mean sporadic at best.
“We have recently been made aware of three pieces of play equipment that have been broken or vandalised."
With calls and emails often being overlooked perhaps Mr Rossiter had only recently been made aware, but that doesn’t mean GreenSquareAccord weren't aware. There is a known issue with emails and calls being lost, hence residents feeling ignored.
“…your complaint has highlighted that there are clear communication, ownership and record keeping issues between internal departments once your initial contact has taken place which makes it difficult for the Customer Service Team to help you or other residents when you contact us.” - Complaint response 25th September 2020
Tenants with no heat or hot water told 'boil a kettle'
In Chippenham residents including a heavily pregnant woman with a young child and elderly people were left without heating and hot water.
Chippenham's MP Michele Donelan commented "Living in October with no heating is not only cruel, but is potentially dangerous to their health – especially in the midst of a respiratory pandemic. Some residents have electric showers but some do not - the answer I was told earlier is to “boil a kettle!” This has left residents unable to wash or maintain basic hygiene – again, an appalling prospect during a pandemic."
Ms Donelan raised this issue with the under secretary for housing Kelly Tolhurst (who we have also added to our own mailing list) and has contacted Wiltshire Council.
"GreenSquare have a duty of care to their residents and both with regard to The Oaks, Neeld Crescent and other properties, they are failing on that duty of care. Quite simply, this cannot go on,"
As ghastly and irresponsible as leaving pregnant women and elderly people without adequate heating in the months of October and November (during a global pandemic) you may be wondering what this has to do with customer being ignored, well this incident had been largely ignored by GreenSquareAccord for ten days, it was only when the article was published in the Gazette & Herald and with the intervention of Chippenham's MP Michele Donelan did GreenSquareAccord take notice.
“We realise how difficult this situation is for the customers impacted and I want to apologise unreservedly for the obvious inconvenience. I also want to confirm this has had our highest priority attention since we became aware of the situation.”
There is an unreserved apology which is nice, GreenSquareAccord are reluctant to issues these as it implies they were at fault. Being at fault isn’t an issue as long as you learn from it and ensure more robust procedures are in place to stop it happening again.
An obvious inconvenience dismiss the failure by GreenSquareAccord somewhat. I think MP Michele Donelan was closer to the mark when she said - “Living in October with no heating is not only cruel, but is potentially dangerous to their health”.
Ms Crownshaw has also employed the same tactic used by Andrew Rossiter (proving that this is an approved and leant technique employed by GreenSquareAccord) ‘since becoming aware’. This puts blame back on to residents for not correctly reporting this issue.
Eventually heaters where issued, temporary accommodation was made available to those who needed it, and we can all hope the issue was resolved.
Why did this need the involvement of the local press and MP’s before GreenSquareAccord took action?
As published in February these incidents where not isolated. In February the Gazette & Herald published yet another article highlighting the dismay of MP Michele Donelan stating that she had received 61 complaints in the past six months and was requesting other residents to who have a grievance to get in touch.
"I worry greatly about the ones that are not approaching me for help and urge anyone impacted to seek my assistance… Also the severity of some of the cases I have had are alarming to say the least." - MP Michele Donelan
She said there remains a disconnect between the policies and assurances given from the top versus what the frontline customer services are offering especially with the out of hours service.
Malmesbury councillor Gavin Grant hand-delivered a letters to the chief executive of Greensquare and demanded a meeting.
“I was contacted by a vulnerable resident from Glovers Court on Boxing Day in a distressed state about water coming into his home. He reported it on December 19 and Greensquare will likely sort out the problem shortly after Easter. And, frankly, that is a disgrace…. Greensquare is coming up too often for my liking with comments from residents struggling with damp, inadequate heating systems and leaking pipes.”
Malmesbury councillor Gavin Grant
Meanwhile Corsham, town councillor Alun Crockford had this to say:
“This has been a huge challenge to rectify. They ignored the residents for months and stuck their heads in the sand. I lived in a place like Kings Avenue growing up, so I can empathise. The residents have been treated with utter indifference.”
GreenSquareAccord measure their own contact score
In the August & September 2020 survey (Communicating with our Customers) in which a mere 416 residents (59 unknown and possible internal staff) were asking (but only 124 answered) the following questions:
Over 49% or residents stated that it took more than 7 days to respond. Is this acceptable when you are without heat and hot water?
Other avenues of contact (less serious short fallings)
Unable to keep an obligated and charged service such as maintaining grounds and parks, and fixing boilers so pregnant women, small children and the elderly aren’t further put at risk might not be an easy and quick fix, as such let’s look at another method and reason to contact.
This next example comes from a conversation through GreenSquares preferred method of contact, their flagship MyGreenSquare!
And we’ve chosen a simple issue - the results from the survey haven’t been published and there was a broken link to the results published in February 2021.
Sent at 17/08/2021, 13:27
Message from Me
Hello, I'd really like to see the result from the survey - GreenSquare Institute of Customer Service survey - February 2021 However the link is broken - https://www.greensquaregroup.com/customers/customer-involvement/greensquaregroup.com/uploads/ICS_mySurvey_-_February_2021.pdf
Can you please make me aware of when this has been fixed.
In what must be record or a fault with the recorded timeframes a minute later there was a response:
Sent at 17/08/2021, 13:38
Message from GreenSquareAccord
Hi ****** Many thanks for letting us know about this. I've just sent the details in your message over to our ViewPoint Team and I've asked them to look in to getting the link re-instated and then to let you know once it's back up and running.
Kind regards ***** myGreenSquare
it doesn’t take long to fix a link as the page is already written, it just needs the correct address copying into the link section. So if this request is not being ignored it should take too long to rectify and for us to be notified.
Sent at 06/09/2021, 13:07
Message from Me
When will you be publishing the results for the rest of the surveys and announcing the prize draw winners?
The link was still not fixed (if it had the user would have been notified) but now it’s clear that the rest of the results have still not be published. Surly all the prize draw winners have been notified.
Sent at 08/09/2021, 07:36
Message from GreenSquareAccord
Hi *****
Many thanks for your message. I've just emailed the Customer Insight Team as it has been a while since they put a new survey up. As soon as I hear back from them with the details I'll email everyone to let them know what the new survey is about and will also give the details of the prize winners from the last one.
Kind regards
***** myGreenSquare
This wasn’t what the resident asked for.
Sent at 08/09/2021, 10:31
Message from Me
They've been putting new surveys up, they just haven't been posting the results or the prize draw winners. There isn't a new survey for September yet, and we are already over a week into the month. When will Septembers survey be released?
Sent at 08/09/2021, 10:46
Message from GreenSquareAccord
Hi ******
I've heard back from the Customer Insight Team - there should be a new survey going on later this week. I'll send an email out to everyone once I have this confirmed and I'll also find out who the recent prize winners were.
Kind regards ***** myGreenSquare
Although we must be grateful that these response are being provided its clear that often the raised concern is ignored. Although they have now acknowledge the lack of a September survey, and agreed to find out who the prize drawer winners were there is no mention of past results being published.
Sent at 08/09/2021, 16:47
Message from Me
Thank you - looking forward to the new survey and the results for February, March, April, May, June, July, and August - and the lucky winners of the monthly prize draw.
Sent at 10/09/2021, 18:52
Message from Me
What is the new timeframe for this action?
Now it seems the breaks have been applied and we are slipping back into the category of being ignored.
Sent at 14/09/2021, 09:18
Message from GreenSquareAccord
Hi *******
I'm still weaiting to hear back from the Customer Insight team with a confirmed date that the survey will be published. I have emailed them again this morning and as soon as I hear anything I will let you know.
Take care *****
myGreenSquare
This is noteworthy. I (and others) truly believe that a majority of the customer service team do their best to provide a great level of service. They are nearly always polite and extremely apologetic, and from what can be found on the job review pages they put up with a lot of anger from disgruntled residents and ‘bossy managers’.
It’s clear from all of the responses that this agent is doing the best they can to seek an answer to this very reasonable question.
Let steer the agent back of track with a reminder of the request:
Sent at 14/09/2021, 18:56
Message from Me
It’s also quite important that they share all the results. These haven’t been posted since January. Have you asked them to publish past results?
Sent at 15/09/2021, 04:48
Message from GreenSquareAccord
Hi ******
I have a meeting with Julianne (Head of Customer Services) this morning at 8am to discuss the new survey and the format it will take. I will mention to her about having the previous survey results updated and I suspect that I'll be emailing everyone either later on today or tomorrow.
Julianne has loaded up the new survey for me to test (it's accessible via the main menu rather than from the tile on the home page) so if you wantd to have a look at it please feel free?
Kind regards *******
Almost a month but we are getting somewhere.
Sent at 15/09/2021, 12:16
Message from Me
Thank you *******
I will. It is worrying that the results haven't been published since January 2021 and now surveys are being repeated. It's very strange, do you know why this is? Perhaps you could ask Julianne when you next meet with her?
Not an unreasonable question. After all GreenSquareAccord often publish how they are keen to work and listen to customers.
Sent at 15/09/2021, 12:28
Message from GreenSquareAccord
Hi ******
I mentioned this to Julianne earlier this morning and I believe she is going to be replying to yourselves directly and I think she will explain the new format going forwards.
Hopefully she will be able to fully address your concerns.
Take care *****
Hopefully and with our fingers crossed there might be an answer to this question.
Sent at 15/09/2021, 13:59
Message from Me
Look forward to receiving that.. thanks ****
Sent at 22/09/2021, 14:07
Message from Me
Hello,
it's been a week now and still no communication from Julianne as to when (or why they haven't been published) we can expect to see the survey results for the last 6 months. Any update on this?
It’s official - another resident being ignored.
Sent at 23/09/2021, 04:54
Message from GreenSquareAccord
Hi ***** Many thanks for your message. Julianne is currently on leave until the 27th September so I have sent an email over to her to chase this up for you. Kind regards ******* myGreenSquare
Everyone is (and should be) entitled to some well earned annual leave. Julianne is no exception. However if GreenSquareAccord had notified the resident, the resident wouldn’t feel like they’re being ignored. Had GreenSquareAccord informed the resident before Julianne departed it wouldn't sound like an excuse.
Sent at 28/09/2021, 15:45
Message from Me
Hello, Now that Julianne (is she the only one who can action this?) is back any update?
Together with Tenants
There are more examples of GreenSquare ignoring their residents, we will continue to publish them on this site in the hope that this ‘push’ will help shape GreenSquareAccord into becoming the housing association they aspire to be - Simply Brilliant
There needs to be more than words on a charter. GreenSquareAccord need to listen, respond and rectify. Ignoring residents has never been acceptable.