Complaints, compliments and suggestions

We want you to be happy with the services you receive and we want to know when we get things right. We want to improve on what we do by building on our successes and learning from our mistakes.

We want to:

  • Listen to your feedback, good or bad
  • Deal with complaints efficiently and effectively
  • Keep you up to date with progress
  • Be open and honest about the process

If we fail to deliver on our promises, you may wish to complain, this page tells you how to do it.

What is a complaint?

A complaint is when you tell us you are dissatisfied with Bolton at Home services (this is also known as an expression of dissatisfaction). This could include:

  • You think we have done something badly or wrong.
  • You think we have not done something that we said we would do.
  • You think we have failed to provide a service to the agreed standard.
  • You think we have treated you unfairly or discourteously.

A complaint could also be about a person or organisation acting on behalf of Bolton at Home. For example, it could be about one of our partners or contractors, who Bolton at Home pays to provide services for its customers.

Bolton at Home define a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction by a customer when something has gone wrong. This may be about the quality of the service you received, how we delivered the service to you, how you were dealt with or how you have been affected as an individual /or a group.

We ask that you contact us with your feedback within 6 months of the incident occurring to allow us to deal with the matter as soon as possible.

We are unable to accept your complaint if:

  • It relates to a first time request for a service;
  • Legal proceedings are pending or have started, or where there is a legal solution;
  • It relates to an issue that has occurred due to an Act of God e.g. high winds;
  • It is a disagreement with our policies or procedures;
  • It relates to reports about neighbour nuisance and/or antisocial behaviour (this will be dealt with under our Antisocial Behaviour Policy);
  • It is considered the demands are unreasonable / aggressive or unreasonably persistent.

See our complaints process

Stage 1:

We have a specialist dedicated team of Customer Care Co-ordinators to handle your complaint, compliment or suggestion. If you want to make a direct complaint, compliment or suggestion you can:

  • Use our web forms (by clicking or tapping on the tiles above)
  • Send a letter to the Customer Care Team (you'll find our address below)
  • Email us at customer.care@boltonathome.org.uk
  • Phone our Customer Contact Centre on 01204 328000
  • Send us a private message on Facebook
  • Or contact your local MP/ Elected Member to act on your behalf. A list of MPs/ Elected Members can be found at www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps

To help us assist you we will need to know:

  • Your name and address
  • Let us know about your feedback
  • Let us know what you think we should do
  • Your daytime contact number and email address (if you have one)

We will always try to resolve your complaint in the first instance over the telephone, but if this is not possible and we need time to look at it, we will acknowledge that we have received your complaint with 5 working days. We will aim to provide you with a full response within 10 working days. If we can’t get back to you in that time, we will explain why and tell you how long it will take.

Here's our address:
Bolton at Home
98 Waters Meeting Road
Bolton
BL1 8SW
01204 328000
customer.care@boltonathome.org.uk

 

Stage 2 - Senior Management Review:

If, after we have investigated your complaint, you are still not happy you can ask us to progress to Stage 2. This review will usually be done by a Senior Manager or a Director. They will undertake a detailed review and investigation to ensure your complaint has been handled in a fair and appropriate manner and a written response will be provided to you within 20 working days.

Want to leave feedback on our complaints process?

If you have used our complaints service and would like to give us feedback on how we did, please telephone 01204 328000 Monday to Friday between 8am- 5.30pm or email customer.care@boltonathome.org.uk.

Contact the Housing Ombudsman Service

If you remain dissatisfied with the way we have handled your complaint, you can ask the Housing Ombudsman Service to escalate your complaint after you have completed our complaints procedure. The contact details for the Housing Ombudsman are as follows:

View our Housing Ombudsman Self Assessment

You can view our Housing Ombudsman Self Assessment by tapping here: Bolton-at-Home-complaint-self-assessment-November 2023

R-Haus and ASB Complaints

If you'd like to register a complaint with R-Haus, please contact them directly by visiting their website www.r-haus.org/contact.

If you'd like to make a complaint about a neighbour, please contact our antisocial behaviour team. To find out more about this, check out our antisocial behaviour team pages on www.boltonathome.org.uk/tackling-asb

The top five reasons for customer complaints

There has been an increase in complaints during 2022/23. We’ve faced several challenges, which affected resources and our ability to respond to a high number of repairs.

An increased focus on damp and mould, and extreme weather caused a large number of burst pipes and flooded properties. As a result, we’ve increased resources, including within our Customer Care Team, to help respond to customer feedback and complaints.

The top five reasons for customer complaints are:

1. Timescales

2. Communication

3. Service failure

4. Service quality

5. Behaviour

We’ve taken a proactive approach to identify and resolve damp issues in our properties. A complete review of our damp and condensation process has been done and this will help is to prioritise urgent cases. Due to the high volume of repairs, there’s been a significant impact on timescales, this is reflected in the figures toward the end of our financial year.

How we’re learning and improving

We have identified numerous areas of learning over the past year, which have either resulted in, or contributed towards the evidence for, the following actions being taken:

  • The introduction of a designated backlog repair team who will provide customers with proactive information on appointments. This was introduced after complaints about lack of communication with regard to outstanding repair work. The team are currently working on damp and mould complaints to ensure a timely resolution for customers.
  • A review of the repairs policy to identify achievable timescales which customers agree with.
  • We have provided further training for staff on new build defect periods.
  • Neighbourhood Policy review – A rise in anti-social behaviour cases and subsequent complaints has led to a full review and introduction of a new policy.
  • We’ve introduced a number of improvements to help customers trying to reach us by phone. Our phone message system means we can now inform customers of their position in the queue and average wait time.
  • We’re also introducing a new ‘blended media system’ to provide customers with the opportunity to contact us through other channels like WhatsApp, social media, email, or our AI chatbot.

More coming over the next 12 months:

  • Working closely with service areas across the organisation to act on feedback from customers. Learning from what went wrong and taking action to improve customer service.
  • Improve access to our service via social media.
  • Introduce a customer portal enabling customers to self-serve when booking repair appointments or paying their rent.