News and media

Have you ever wondered what happens to your feedback once you share it with us?

Listening to our customers is essential to providing services that truly meet their needs. Last year, our customer scrutiny group spent almost six months taking a detailed look at how effectively the customer voice is heard across Westward.

Their review asked a crucial question: is customer feedback listened to and considered at every level of the organisation? To understand more about this, the group looked at how customer complaints are handled, what our tenant satisfaction measures (TSMs) tell us about customers’ experiences and how Westward uses this information to learn and improve.

Also, as a part of the review, group members interviewed Westward staff, managers, our executive team and board members to understand how well scrutiny and the customer voice are embedded across the organisation. The interviews highlighted both strengths and gaps in how staff across Westward understand and engage with scrutiny and the customer voice.

Overall, colleagues value listening to customers and have a genuine interest in what the scrutiny group does, but awareness of formal scrutiny processes is inconsistent. Managers and the executive team demonstrated stronger understanding and shared clear examples of customer‑driven improvements, though they also highlighted ongoing challenges such as digital exclusion, low representation among certain customer groups and internal communication gaps. Board engagement showed that the customer voice is not only heard but acted upon at the highest level.

Overall, the findings show that while Westward is ahead of many peers in customer engagement, there is room to strengthen awareness, visibility, and integration of scrutiny and the customer voice across all departments to build trust, accountability, and transparency.

This in‑depth work has resulted in a comprehensive 13‑page report containing 39 recommendations aimed at strengthening how customer voices are heard, valued and acted upon. The recommendations include:

• Ensure scrutiny outcomes are consistently communicated to all colleagues up to and including the board
• Introduce follow-up surveys (e.g. 18 months after moving in)
• Provide alternative engagement methods for digitally excluded customers
• Promote cross-departmental learning and best practice sharing
• Keep equality and diversity central; review reasonable adjustments and analyse engagement by demographic

You can read the full report and recommendations here and learn how the customer voice really can change services.

The recommendations are reviewed by the relevant service and an action plan with realistic timescales is presented to the scrutiny group at their next meeting for approval.

This review has reinforced just how important customer voice is at Westward and how much it already shapes the way we work. It also gives us a clear direction for making engagement even stronger, more inclusive and more visible across the organisation. By acting on these recommendations and continuing to listen, learn and improve, we remain committed to ensuring every customer has the opportunity to be heard and to see the real impact their feedback makes. Your voice matters and it continues to help us build better services for everyone.

Are you interested in joining the customer scrutiny group? 

Here is group member, Donna, explaining more about how the group works and what they do.