Customer Voice Strategy

1. INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE

The overall purpose of our refreshed Customer Voice strategy remains the same. We want customers to be more than recipients of services. We want customers to actively shape, challenge and improve what we do.

Our first Customer Voice Strategy running from July 2024 to October 2026, coincided with the introduction of the consumer standards and in October 2025 we were awarded a C1 grading recognising our commitment to identify the needs and expectations of our customers to influence One Manchester’s  overall customer experience. 

As our customer voice framework continues to evolve, we believe this refreshed Strategy should build on customers being a source of feedback to becoming a source of influence, helping shape services, decisions and outcomes. Our aim is not simply to meet regulatory expectations, but to work together with customers to deliver the right outcome overall, balancing customer needs, business priorities and regulatory responsibilities.

We have made significant progress over the last two years in embedding customer voice and increasing the opportunities available for customers to influence services. However, we recognise that meaningful influence is not simply about asking customers for their views on decisions that have already largely been made. To achieve the greatest impact, customers need opportunities to contribute earlier in the process, helping to shape thinking, explore options and influence direction before proposals are finalised. This shift will help ensure customer involvement is meaningful, transparent and valued, rather than being perceived as consultation for consultation's sake.

This approach is built on the foundation that our customers are experts through their lived experience of our homes and services and their knowledge is critical in helping us understand what is working well, where improvements are needed, how customers feel about the services they receive, and how we can deliver better outcomes. Understanding customer sentiment, trust and confidence helps us see beyond the operational and better understand the real impact our services have on customer's lives.

We are delighted to have 190 engaged customers, who choose to join formal engagement activities through customer scrutiny, consultation and co-creation sessions on a range of subjects with their voice significantly changing and improving services. We also hear the customer voice every day through Tenant Satisfaction Measures, transactional surveys, complaints, compliments, tenancy experience visits, customer journey mapping, and MP and Councillor enquiries. Together these  channels provide a full picture of customer experiences and expectations.

As part of our Customer Voice Strategy, launched in April 2024, we committed to developing a  Customer Voice Framework that ensured  customer involvement has grown significantly. We now have 190 engaged customers contributing to consultations, scrutiny activities, service reviews and co-creation exercises. Customers have generously shared their time, expertise and lived experience to help improve services. Customers have improved services in repairs, complaints and communications.

Whilst our engaged customers regularly participate in consultations, scrutiny and co-creation activities, customer voice is much broader than formal engagement. Every customer interaction provides an opportunity to hear and understand the customer voice. 

Tenant Satisfaction Measures, transactional surveys, complaints, tenancy experience visits and conversations in our communities all provide valuable insight into the customer experience.

Our refreshed Strategy is shaped by customer voice and an independent SMART review by TPAS. It aims to place equal value on the views of engaged customers with customers that provide feedback through less formal settings.  Both perspectives are equally important and together provide a complete understanding of customer expectations and experiences.

This approach helps ensure that services are shaped not only by those who actively engage, but also by those whose voices may otherwise be underrepresented.

This refreshed strategy aims to ensure that all customer insight is heard, understood and acted upon throughout the organisation: influencing colleagues, leadership teams, Committee and Board decision-making. 

By hearing the customer voice, we will continue to strengthen our relationship of equals, recognising that customers bring expertise, challenge and insight that are essential to delivering excellent services.

As with the previous strategy, this strategy will only succeed with everyone’s buy in. Hearing to understand the customer voice is not the job of the Customer Experience team in isolation. There must continue to be a business wide willingness and commitment to listen to understand the customer to truly hear the customer voice, and incorporate it, in all our decision making. 

To have an independent review of our approach to customer voice, we commissioned a TPAS Smart review in 2025/26 and the key recommendations from that review are included in the action plan. 

2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of the Customer Voice strategy is to embed the customer voice throughout One Manchester so that customer insight influences decisions, services and outcomes, creating better experiences for customers and, in turn, stronger outcomes for the business.

We have made significant progress in embedding customer voice and increasing opportunities for customers to influence services. The next stage of our journey is to ensure customers are involved earlier in decision-making processes, helping to shape thinking and explore options before decisions are made. We want customers to influence decisions, not simply respond to them. This will help ensure customer involvement is meaningful.

The associated objectives to achieving this are:

• To create a culture where hearing and understanding the customer voice is everyone's responsibility. 
• To understand our customers, their experiences, needs, expectations and sentiments. 
• To ensure customer insight influences service delivery, policy development and decision-making at every level of the organisation. 
• To provide an inclusive and accessible range of opportunities for customers to engage and influence. 
• To increase collaboration, co-creation and shared learning between customers and colleagues. 
• To demonstrate the impact customer voice has on decisions, services and outcomes. 
• To strengthen customer scrutiny and provide assurance to Leadership Team, Committee and Board. 
• To meet and exceed the requirements of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

These objectives will be achieved through four key principles: Hearing to Influence, Choice, Co-Creation and Communication, supported by the associated action plan. These principles remain unchanged from our previous strategy following consultation with customers.

3. WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT CUSTOMER VOICE TODAY

Consultation with customers to shape and inform this strategy identified several key themes:

Customers value involvement

All customers consulted said they felt welcomed and respected when participating in engagement activities. This provides assurance that One Manchester has created positive environments where customers feel able to contribute openly and honestly.

Customers want to see the impact of their involvement

Whilst 86% of engaged customers felt they had influenced decisions, 14% were unsure whether their input had made a difference. This demonstrates the importance of strengthening our feedback loops so customers can clearly see the outcomes resulting from their involvement.

Different customers want different opportunities

Customers consistently told us that engagement is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
Many customers value face-to-face discussions and workshops, whilst others prefer digital consultation, surveys and online involvement opportunities.

Providing flexibility and choice will remain central to our framework. 

Customers want broader involvement opportunities

Customers understood the purpose of our existing panel structure but felt it did not always reflect the full range of topics they wanted to influence.

Customers expressed a preference for a wider menu of involvement opportunities that allows them to participate based on their interests and experiences.

Barriers remain for some customers

Customers who are not currently engaged told us that involvement opportunities can appear formal, intimidating or unlikely to result in meaningful influence.

Addressing these perceptions will be essential if we are to attract a more diverse and representative customer voice.

Visibility of customer influence matters

Customers supported the creation of "Approved by Customers" and "Co-Created with Customers" branding to visibly demonstrate where customers have influenced decisions, services and communications.

4. PRINCIPLES

Principle 1 - Hearing to Influence

One Manchester must embed a culture of not only listening to, but hearing and understanding, our customers. We must understand our diverse communities and customer base to deliver on what is important to our customers. 

For One Manchester, hearing is more than listening. Hearing is the responsibility of all colleagues in understanding what customers are telling us, considering the impact on customers' lives, and using that insight to influence decisions, services and outcomes. Hearing means customers can see evidence that their experiences, views and priorities have been considered, even where we are unable to take forward suggestions. 

What the customer voice is telling us

• 69.9% of customers felt we listen to their views and act upon them in 2025/26

Data and insight plays a vital role in knowing who our customers are, and is gained from a variety of sources, but truly understanding our customers goes beyond transactional information sharing and passive listening to ensure customer voice should influence decision-making at every level of the organisation.

We must continue to build a culture where customer insight is actively sought, valued and acted upon. This means moving beyond consultation and ensuring customer views influence service design, policy development, operational decision-making and strategic direction.

Our approach recognises customers as experts through their lived experience. Customers experience the outcomes of our decisions every day and provide an invaluable perspective that complements the operational and strategic work across One Manchester. 

Customer voice should be visible throughout the organisation from frontline teams through to Leadership Team, Customer and Communities Committee and Board. Decisions should be informed by customer insight wherever possible and customers should be able to see evidence of the impact their voice has had.

Over the next two years we will further strengthen how customer insight is incorporated into performance reporting, complaints learning, and governance structures to ensure customer voice remains a key source of insight and assurance.

Principle 2 - Choice

We serve a diverse customer base and understand that engagement is not a one size fits all. We will provide a range of meaningful and accessible opportunities for customers to engage in ways that suit them.

What the customer voice is telling us 

• In person is the preferred method for engaged customers 
• Digital is the preferred method for non-engaged customers

Customers told us they value having a range of different ways to engage. Whilst many customers enjoy attending face-to-face sessions, others prefer digital engagement or less time intensive opportunities such as surveys.

Our future approach will move beyond a predominantly panel-based model towards a broader menu of opportunities, whilst still allowing customers to choose how and when they wish to participate.

This flexible approach will support greater inclusivity and increase representation from customers who may previously have felt unable or unwilling to engage.

We will continue to consider accessibility, reasonable adjustments, digital inclusion and customer preference in designing our engagement activities.

Providing choice is not only about how customers engage, but whose voices we hear. Whilst engaged customers provide valuable ongoing insight, we must continue to seek feedback from a broader range of customers through surveys, tenancy experience visits, complaints, community events and targeted consultation. This will help ensure that customer voice remains representative and reflective of our diverse communities.

Principle 3 - Co-creation

We will work collaboratively with customers to design and improve services, policies and communications. Co-creation encourages transparency, positive collaboration, and customer empowerment. 

What the customer voice is telling us 

• Customers value co-creation because they can see tangible changes resulting from their involvement
• Customers want greater visibility of co-created outcomes and opportunities to influence a wider range of services

Co-creation remains one of the most powerful ways of ensuring services are designed around customer needs.

Over the last two years customers have co-created our Tenancy Welcome Pack, Service Standards, customer correspondence and repairs communications, ensuring services are better aligned to customer expectations.

Customers have told us they want greater visibility of co-created services and decisions.

Co-creation represents our ambition of a relationship of equals between One Manchester and our customers. Rather than designing services for customers, we will increasingly design services with customers, recognising that lived experience is a form of expertise and that involving customers early in decision-making leads to better services, stronger trust and improved outcomes.

By working in partnership with customers we create solutions that balance professional knowledge, regulatory requirements, and customer lived experience. This ensures services are practical, compliant, inclusive and customer-focused.

We will continue to embed co-creation into service design, policy development and communication review processes. To further strengthen our approach, we will introduce:

• "Co-Created with Customers" branding
• "Approved by Customers" branding
• Increased promotion of co-created outcomes
• Greater customer involvement earlier in project lifecycles

Principle 4 - Communication

Honest communication drives trust. We will demonstrate how customer feedback has influenced decisions and maintain open, transparent communication.

Communication is essential if customers are to feel their voice has genuine influence.

What the customer voice is telling us 

• 79.1% of customers agreed they are kept informed about things that matter to them 
• Communication is make or break to the customer experience 

Customers told us they want more regular updates on how their involvement has influenced decisions. Although customers value existing communication methods, they identified opportunities to further strengthen feedback and reporting.

When customers share their experiences, challenge us or contribute their expertise, they should be able to see how this has informed decisions. Closing the feedback loop demonstrates accountability and reinforces that customer voice is valued as an important source of influence within the organisation.

We want customers to understand not only what decisions were made, but how customer insight contributed to those decisions. Over the next two years we will improve the visibility of customer influence through:

• Enhanced "You Said, We Did" reporting
• Dedicated Customer Voice newsletters
• Updates through existing customer newsletters
• Improvements to the Customer Voice website
• Promotion of customer stories and outcomes

To encourage wider participation, we will also develop customer advocacy and ambassador approaches. By sharing the experiences of engaged customers through our website, social media channels, and newsletter we aim to demonstrate that involvement opportunities are welcoming, inclusive and genuinely influential.

5. MEASURING SUCCESS

The success of the Customer Voice strategy will be measured in a variety of ways including:

• Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs)
• Number of engaged customers
• Customer representation across engagement opportunities
• Percentage of customers who feel their views influence decisions
• Number of co-created services, policies and communications
• Customer feedback on engagement experiences
• Complaint volumes 
• Housing Ombudsman findings
• Regulatory grading
• Board and Committee assurance

6. RISKS

The risk remains that customer voice is viewed as the responsibility of a single team rather than a responsibility shared across the organisation and that customer voice is a “tick box” exercise. 

To mitigate this risk, customer voice must remain embedded within decision-making, service design, policy development, complaints learning and performance monitoring activities across all areas of the business.

7. ACTION PLAN

A detailed action plan has been developed and appended to this strategy.