Hastoe has made a number of important changes to improve services for customers. These changes include appointing new repairs contractors and developing our online service, MyHastoe.
- Online services: We are continuing to develop MyHastoe to become more of a one-stop shop so more services can be reported and accessed online. Residents who use MyHastoe can report and follow up a repair, upload photos, check their rent account, make a payment, set up a direct debit, update their details, apply to keep a pet, report antisocial behaviour, register a complaint/compliment and request contact from a housing officer. To set up an account residents only need to have their email address, date of birth and customer reference number (found on any correspondence from us). Our Customer Service team is on hand to help with setting up an account by calling 0300 123 2250 during office hours.
- Phone service: Over the last couple of years, we have recruited and trained more Customer Service Advisors and we now have more people working on our phone lines at the busiest times of the week. When customers call our Customer Service Team, they will now hear a message that tells them where they are in the queue and give them the option to hold the line or use our call-back service.
- Follow-up repairs service: When you report a repair you now receive the name and phone number of the contractor so you can contact them directly to make an appointment, etc. This is intended to speed up the process for getting your repair fixed. This information is also recorded on our system (MyHastoe) together with a date when the repair is expected to be completed. Near the completion date you will receive a text from us to check whether the repair has been done, and whether it's been done to your satisfaction. If it hasn’t, we will chase the contractor so you don’t have to. We have established a new dedicated team to help tenants if they are experiencing problems with their repairs.
- Repairs contractors: We have appointed a number of long and short-term contractors to cover parts of Sussex, London, Essex, Herts, Cambs, Suffolk and Norfolk. We are intending to recruit even more local contractors so we can further improve our service.
- Estate services: We are recruiting an Estate Services Manager to improve our estate and caretaking services. We have plans to expand our estate services team and our focus will be on quality, value for money, health & safety and resident satisfaction.
- Customer scrutiny groups: We have developed a number of scrutiny groups which will enable residents to scrutinise key areas of our service such as how we manage complaints, damp and mould, and building safety. These enable us to identify where improvements are needed if things have gone wrong. This is in addition to our service to manage complaints. Find out how to get involved.
- Home improvement works: Each year we are investing £5 million to improve Hastoe's homes. Where needed, we will be replacing kitchens, bathrooms, heating systems, windows as well as making improvements to external decoration.
- Face-to-face meetings: As well as being able to meet with Hastoe staff, such as your Housing Officer for tenancy matters or your Repairs Officer for maintenance issues, we organise two sessions a year to enable tenants to meet face to face with Hastoe Board members and our senior managers. For convenience, these are organised in different parts of the country and we notify tenants as and when they are organised.
- Tenant phone days: For customers who are want to talk with our Chief Executive or one of our Directors, we organise tenant phone days three times a year. Details of these are advertised on MyHastoe a few weeks in advance of each phone day.
- Community support: We are actively recruiting more Resident Champions so they can report any issues affecting communal areas to us at an early stage. If you are interested, please get in touch.
