Complaints and Compliments
We always try to deliver the best possible service we can for customers, but we recognise that sometimes, we don't always achieve this and meet your expectations.
When something goes wrong, or you're not happy with the service you've received from us, we want to know about it; so that we can put it right, and improve the way we do things in the future.
Equally, we'd love to hear examples of what we've done well too, so that we can continue and replicate it across all our regions.
You can give us your feedback over the phone, or by email by contacting your local branch.
We're currently updating this page so you can give us details of your complaint or compliment online and we'll make sure it's responded to as soon as possible. This shouldn't take any longer than a few minutes to complete.
How we define a complaint
We have adopted the Housing Ombudsman's definition of a complaint, which is:
An expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents.
Our complaints process
Stage One
When you make a complaint, we will log it and formally acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days.
Wherever possible, we will try to resolve a complaint during your first contact with us, but if we need to look into it, we will carry out an investigation and provide you with a response and resolution within 10 working days.
If we are unable to meet this timescale, we will let you know and keep you updated on progress.
Stage Two
If you are unhappy with our response at Stage One, you can request your complaint is escalated to Stage Two. This will be carried out by a Senior Manager who will review the investigation at Stage One and your reasons for dissatisfaction.
We aim to respond to Stage Two complaints within 20 working days. If we are unable to meet this timescale, we will let you know and keep you updated on progress.
You can find a copy of our full Complaints Policy here.
Further Redress
We subscribe to The Property Ombudsman (TPO) and the Housing Ombudsman schemes.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of our internal complaints process, you have the right to refer your complaint to either of these bodies.
Both organisations will not normally consider a complaint unless it has gone through all stages of our internal complaints process. They will not consider complaints over twelve months after the internal investigation was concluded, if the complaint is outside their remit or if they have previously issued a judgement on the complaint.
For further information on how to refer a complaint to either Ombudsman services, please click on the links above.
Learning from complaints
You can click here to find read our Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report for 2023 and here for our Complaints Self Assessment which has been submitted to the Housing Ombudsman as part of regulatory requirements. We will use the lessons learned from complaints to try and improve what we offer to our customers. Our board's response to our assessment was;
"Our Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) show that our customers feel that we need to improve our complaints handling. Only 32% of customers felt satisfied with complaints handling at Mears Living and this needs to improve. We know that we have a lot of work to do, but we are committed to providing customers with an accessible complaints service focused on resolution.
It’s also important that we use the opportunity presented to us by complaint processing, to learn, improve and build confidence in our service. We’re pleased that our volume of complaints only increased by 5% and we are doing more work on our IT system to be able to differentiate between our different customer groups.
Effective complaints handling that drives service improvement is a high priority for us. We recognise completely that the service is not where it needs to be to meet customer expectations. We performed well this year; 81% of complaints responded to within 10 days at Stage 1 but we know that we need to do better at Stage 2.
We also accept that we need to get better at engaging with our customers to understand what they want to see in terms of service improvement and the way we manage their complaints. This year, we will be undertaking a review of our complaints handling performance with our Customer Voice Partnership, a panel of customers helping us to scrutinise our performance and make changes.
We have also nominated a Member Responsible for Complaints (MRC) who will work with collaboratively with staff to investigate in more detail the root causes of complaints to better inform service improvements and hold operational teams to account."
How we deal with feedback
- All customer enquiries or complaints are taken seriously and are investigated within our policy guidelines.
- Customers are made fully aware of our complaints process and timescales when they raise a complaint and are kept informed of progress through the duration of the complaint process.
- Mears Living aims to investigate and achieve resolution of a complaint at the earliest opportunity and where possible within the agreed service level agreements.
- When communicating, Mears Living will use jargon-free, plain language.
- All complaints are recorded and managed through Mears Living's customer contact management platforms.
- Mears Living will provide clear reasons for any decisions, referencing any relevant policy, law or good practice where appropriate in their outcome response.
- Mears Living will provide details of how to escalate a complaint at each stage of the process
- If a customer is not happy with the outcome of their complaint at stage two, they will be signposted to the appropriate Ombudsman service.
Keeping records
We will keep records of all customer contact, including complaints and the details of any investigation carried out so that we can deal objectively with complaints when they occur.
We will handle customers’ information sensitively and in line with data protection legislation and will share all relevant information to The Property Ombudsman, the Housing Ombudsman and the Social Housing Regular when requested.
We will analyse complaints data and use feedback to improve our service to customers in the future.