Comments, Complaints and Compensation

Everyone at Accent is responsible for providing an excellent customer experience. But, even with the best intentions, things can go wrong.

If they do, we want to reassure you that we are listening to what you say, acting on what you say and getting your problems sorted quickly, efficiently and professionally.    

Making a complaint  

You can complain to Accent about things like missed appointments, us not meeting our repair standards, or not dealing with your concerns in line with our policies. Service requests - for instance, reporting a broken fence - are not classed as complaints, but could be if we fail to fix the fence when we have promised to.  
 
You can report a complaint in a number of ways: 

• Use our online form 
• Call us on 0345 678 0555.
• Tell a member of Accent staff.
• Email us at customerservices@accentgroup.org
  
• Write to us: 3rd Floor, Scorex House, 1 Bolton Road, Bradford, BD1 4AS​

How does it work?

When you make a complaint to Accent, we will acknowledge the complaint within five working days before progressing to stage 1 of our complaints process.

We will investigate the issue and agree what is needed to resolve it. We aim to do this within 10 working days, but if the matter is complex, we may agree an extension to this timeframe with you.

If you remain unhappy following the stage 1 response, you can ask for your complaint to be escalated to stage 2 of the complaints process, when it will be reviewed by a senior manager or director.

We will keep you updated throughout the complaint process.   

Housing Ombudsman

The Housing Ombudsman Service is available to support customers with their complaints. You can contact the Ombudsman for advice during the complaints process, and if you are still dissatisfied after our stage 2 response you can ask the Ombudsman to review your complaint.  

Housing Ombudsman Service: Complaints Handling Code

In July 2020, the Housing Ombudsman Service published the Complaint Handling Code. The code provides a framework for us to follow which sets out good practice and supports us to respond to complaints effectively and fairly and to learn from complaints to improve our services. More information about the code is available here.

We have carried out self-assessments against the code, which you can view below:

For 2023, click here.

For 2022, click here. 

For 2021, click here.

Our complaints policy 

You told us that how we handle complaints is important to you. We are working hard to improve our processes so that complaints are dealt with quickly and appropriately. We have updated our Complaints and Compensation policy to reflect this. The new policy comes with a promise to treat your complaints fairly and professionally, respond and act in a timely way and learn from our mistakes. You can read our Complaints and Compensation Policy here.

Our new policy is in line with the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code. We assess our service to check how well we comply with the Ombudsman Code, and we are happy to say we comply with it in most areas. However, there are some areas we need to improve on, including making customers more aware of the complaints process, keeping customers in the loop with any complaint they have raised, sharing learning from complaints, and evidencing that we are co-operating with the Ombudsman.  

Making changes 

We are committed to improving the complaints process and recognise that in the past we have not provided the level of service expected by our customers. Every member of the Accent team is working hard to resolve any complaints in a timely and satisfactory matter. You can be assured that if you need to raise a concern with us, it will be dealt with appropriately and you will be listened to.  

When a customer makes a complaint, we will do our best to deal with it efficiently, professionally and in line with our policy.

When we close a complaint we will send a survey, either by text or e mail, so customers can tell us how satisfied they were with the way we dealt with the complaint. Customers are asked to score us from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied) and they can leave a comment to explain their score. We use customer feedback to help us improve how we do things.

We understand how important it is to listen to customers and to keep them up to date with progress once they have made a complaint. When we get this right the feedback we get from our customers is really positive.

Ms P was very satisfied with the way we dealt with her complaint about anti-social behaviour. She complained as she felt that we were not dealing with her concerns in line with our anti-social behaviour policy. We opened a complaint and a manager contacted Ms P and arranged to visit her a few days later. At the visit we explained the actions we were taking, including working in partnership with the police, and installing CCTV cameras to identify and resolve the ongoing issues on the estate. We arranged a follow-up call to the customer to keep her up to date with the progress of her complaint.

Ms P was happy with the actions we had agreed to address the anti-social behaviour and that we had taken the time to explain this to her. She was happy for us to close the complaint.

Complaints – frequently asked questions