How to … start a customer panel

Getting tenant feedback on the finer points of your services can be difficult – not enough people respond to surveys and very few attend meetings – but a customer panel can reach the parts other methods of tenant participation can't.

Family Housing Association has enlisted a group of 500 tenants to respond to regular questionnaires on service improvements. The London-based landlord is spending £45,000 on the scheme over three years.

Michael Cleaver, head of marketing and research at Family, explains why. "While we could get feedback on services through surveys from our wider tenant body, it was difficult to really consult with them on specific service issues. The panel makes this possible."

He adds that it is a particularly useful method of involving tenants who don't feel able to spare much of their time.

The first port of call is appointing the right people to your panel. "It is important to make sure it statistically reflects the age, ethnicity and sex of all of your tenants," says Cleaver.

In June 2003, Family enlisted a research company to profile the target audience. After looking at all Family tenants, they decided the panel needed to include people aged between 24 and 40, from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and women. "These are the groups that are traditionally under-represented in Family tenant feedback," explains Cleaver. The panel also needed to consist of at least 500 members in order to be a representative size.

It was difficult to consult tenants on specific service issues. The panel makes this possible

Once you know what your target is, you have to encourage tenants to join. First Family wrote to 9000 tenants in July explaining about the customer panel, and sent out a questionnaire, with a free postage return envelope, that asked what tenants' concerns were and how they would like to communicate their views in future. "Family found that black and minority ethnic tenants were under-represented in the responses," says Cleaver. So at the end of August, Family representatives carried out 250 door-to-door visits.

Of all respondents, 80% said they wanted to communicate through questionnaires and 20% wanted to set up interest groups to talk about problems and solutions. Tenants' main concerns were maintenance and antisocial behaviour.

Family got its 500 tenants, and the panel was launched in January. Cleaver is keen to point out that there is still a "steady flow" of people joining. The current number is 560 and the limit is 1000 members. They have introduced quarterly freepost questionnaires for panel members and a quarterly newsletter to keep the panel informed of what is being done in response to the results of the survey.

The association has also introduced two interest groups. One consists of 18 panel members, three Family representatives and three Family contractor representatives. It advises on the association's maintenance service. The other has 10 panel members and Family's tenant participation manager. It is looking at ways of working with tenants to plan, improve and monitor services.