Complaint handling has become one of the most closely watched parts of social housing service delivery, and for good reason. Since April 2024, the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code has been statutory, meaning landlords aren't just being encouraged to handle complaints well, they're required to and they must prove it through annual self‑assessments and performance reporting. For housing teams already juggling repairs, lettings and tenancy management, that's a meaningful shift in how complaint handling needs to work day to day.
One of the biggest practical challenges sitting underneath this requirement is fragmentation. Residents don't raise issues through a single, neat channel. They call, they email, they message through a resident portal, they mention something in passing to a housing officer who logs it differently to how the contact centre would. Each of those channels often operates in its own silo, which means a resident's complaint can lose context every time it moves between teams or systems. Think of the housing equivalent of Chinese whispers where the original complaint gets altered to the point that it becomes substantially different, or worse still, doesn’t get dealt with at all.
That's where omnichannel customer experience solutions are starting to make a real difference for housing providers trying to meet the Code's expectations without adding more administrative burden to already stretched teams.
The Code has been designed to create a positive complaints culture, improve landlord, tenant relationships and make sure tenants know about their rights to complain. Key points in the Code include:
However, these changes will be much harder to implement without a joined‑up system, which is why creating an omnichannel customer experience is essential.
The Code is clear that landlords must record and respond to complaints promptly, and that residents must be able to raise issues however they choose, including digitally, without unnecessary barriers like forced account creation.
An omnichannel environment supports this directly. When phone, email, web chat and portal interactions all feed into one connected view, a complaint raised at 9am via email and followed up at 2pm via phone doesn't get treated as two separate, disconnected events. The acknowledgment goes out faster because the system already understands what's been logged and where it stands, rather than relying on someone manually piecing together the timeline.
Anyone who has dealt with a frustrating customer service experience knows the pain of explaining the same problem three times to three different people. For housing residents, particularly those already dealing with a stressful repair or service issue, any repetition adds real frustration on top of the original complaint.
With an omnichannel contact centre solution, the conversation history travels with the resident as their issue moves between channels and teams. A housing officer picking up a complaint that started on the phone can see exactly what was said, what's already been promised and what's outstanding, without asking the resident to start again.
The Code places specific emphasis on landlords' duties under the Equality Act 2010, including the need to anticipate reasonable adjustments for residents who may need extra support accessing the complaints process. This is an area where consistency matters enormously. A connected omnichannel approach helps ensure that whoever a resident speaks to, whichever channel they use, the response reflects what's already known about their circumstances and needs.
That consistency is harder to achieve when information about a vulnerable resident's preferences or required adjustments is trapped in one adviser’s notes rather than visible across the service.
Complaint procedures under the Code follow a defined two‑stage structure, and residents need to be able to see where their complaint sits within that process. When actions and status updates are tracked centrally rather than scattered across separate systems, it becomes far easier to give residents clear, accurate updates on progress. That clarity reduces the volume of “just checking in” calls and emails, which in turn frees up time for the team actually working the case.
Perhaps the most underrated benefit of a modern omnichannel solution is what it does behind the scenes: routing. Complaints that touch repairs, antisocial behaviour or tenancy issues often need input from more than one team.
A well‑configured omnichannel customer experience solutions can route a complaint to the right person automatically, flag follow‑up actions and keep a single thread of accountability running through to resolution, supporting the kind of timely, joined‑up handling the Code expects and improving overall resident experience. Discover how Incline IT can help your organisation deliver faster complaint resolutions through a modern omnichannel solution, built around the way your residents actually want to get in touch.
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