The Pioneer Group’s Customer 1st team supports residents to quickly resolve their housing and tenancy issues, with the team handling all incoming calls.

Based on regular monitoring of its services and customer feedback over the past 18 months, The Pioneer Group restructured its Customer 1^st team and working practices to improve telephone arrangements, bringing in extra resources to drive down call wait times.

In 2021/2022 the Customer 1^st team answered 21,114 calls, with an average wait time of 114 seconds. In addition to this, its repairs contractor also answered 10,620 housing repair calls, with an average wait time of 68 seconds. This totals an average of around one call per household per month.

Lee Steele, Head of Housing and Customer Services said

Our Customer 1^st team works incredibly hard to provide a good service to our tenants and community. In order to improve the customer experience further, there are plans for additional changes. These include the option to hang up and keep your place in the call queue. When you reach the top of the queue, the phone system will call you back and you’ll be connected to a member of staff – allowing you to get on with other things, and potentially saving you money on your phone bill or your call plan minutes.

The introduction of this improvement is planned for the next couple of months following a thorough testing of the system.

The Pioneer Group is also trialling a customer satisfaction survey to better understand a customer’s experience following a call to the Customer 1^st team. Residents may receive a text following their call to ask them about their experience, with a link to a very short survey.  Customer 1st reviews all feedback and uses it to work with the team to improve its service.

The busiest day for calls to Customer 1st is Monday, so to avoid waiting, please call between Tuesday and Friday for a quicker service, email contactus@pioneergroup.org.uk or pop by to see the team at 11 High Street during our normal office hours.

The latest call figures build on the complaints system that was launched in 2021, where the Customer 1st team were empowered to recognise dissatisfaction and handle the situation, rather than it escalating to a formal complaint.

To provide feedback to The Pioneer Group, residents are welcomed to submit any comments by clicking here.