Last updated: 23rd July 2025
First published: 10th March 2023
Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) are essential for landlords to assess their performance, while tenants also gain insights into how well the landlords are doing. With the development of AI, there is so much automation available to housing associations to use that isn’t being implemented, which can greatly benefit both landlords’ and tenants’ experiences.
Working with a customer experience and case management specialist like Netcall, social landlords can improve processes and workflows, using low-code development software, RPA, contact centre and AI to optimise resources and achieve TSM objectives.
This guide will take you through everything you need to know about TSMs and the recommendations for carrying out TSMs and improving results. Throughout, we’ll answer the following questions:
Tenant Satisfaction Measures are a set of indicators used by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) to assess how effectively social housing providers deliver quality homes and services to tenants.
They form part of a set of ways, laid out by the Government, in ‘The charter for social housing residents: social housing white paper’, to improve things for people living in social housing. While some steps are for the Regulator of Social Housing, TSMs impact landlords and social housing organisations from 1 April 2023.
Tenant Satisfaction Measures aim to improve the lives of social housing tenants, ensuring they are listened to, able to live in safe homes in good repair, and that their complaints are well-handled. TSMs will be the recipe that delivers increased tenant satisfaction, reductions in complaints and improved overall wellbeing for residents. At a high level, TSMs let tenants see how well their landlord is doing, and where improvements need to be made, spanning five key themes, including:
Of the 22 TSMs, 10 are measured directly by landlords through management information (MI), and the remaining 12 are captured via tenant perception surveys. This involves a significant amount of data not only to collect, but also to analyse and use to improve satisfaction in the future.
With landlords and housing providers expected to submit their first year’s performance this summer, and the results to be shared publicly in autumn, the race is truly on to ensure processes are in place to not only optimise the tenant experience but capture satisfaction data that’s ready for reporting. Read more: Impact of the annual Tenant Satisfaction Measures standard.
Understanding tenant concerns can highlight areas for operational improvement, leading to more efficient service delivery. But tenant satisfaction goes far beyond simply keeping residents happy. It has a direct impact on tenant retention, as satisfied tenants are less likely to move, reducing void periods and associated costs for housing providers.
A reputation for excellent tenant satisfaction attracts new residents and builds trust within the community. Plus, happy residents contribute to a more positive and stable community environment. In many regions, tenant satisfaction is a key indicator for regulatory bodies assessing the performance of housing providers.
If TSMs are implemented effectively, they could be hugely impactful for the UK’s Social Housing sector. Along with providing good tenant service and improving the quality of homes, they could foster better collaboration between landlords.
For landlords, data-driven insights lead to more effective and tenant-centric services. By demonstrating a commitment to tenant satisfaction, landlords build trust and a positive public image. Additionally, understanding tenant priorities enables more effective allocation of resources. Higher tenant retention and proactive issue resolution can lead to long-term cost savings.
Regarding tenant benefits, feedback to the TSM can directly influence improvements to homes and estates, leading to more responsive, quality and tailored service. When tenants’ voice is heard and valued, the sense of community will increase.
As mentioned, of the 22 Tenant Satisfaction Measures, 10 are measured directly by landlords through management information (MI) and 12 through tenant perception surveys. Here’s a breakdown of the collection methods:
TSMs are typically expressed as percentage-based metrics that reflect tenant feedback. For example, to gauge overall satisfaction with a landlord, a common question might be:
“Overall, how satisfied are you with the service provided by [Housing Provider Name]?”
Responses are then aggregated into a percentage score, such as 85% of tenants satisfied, giving housing providers a clear indicator of performance.
Besides the core set of 22 performance measures, there are certain technical requirements to ensure that all social housing providers collect and report data consistently, including:
Here are some of our recommendations to help landlords increase tenant satisfaction:
A culture of open communication can be achieved by tenant surveys and both proactive and reactive engagement from the contact centre. This is vital to enabling improved tenant experiences.
Surveys and other feedback mechanisms should be available via a range of channels – whether that be email, SMS, social media or a phone call. Providing access to 24/7 customer service and support is equally as important, should issues arise outside of usual working hours, which can often be the case for residents.
Not to be used in isolation, self-service options are an efficient and effective way of helping to manage this by offering tenants the opportunity to access solutions and answers for themselves without needing to make direct contact. This helps reduce the burden on contact centres, whilst offering greater satisfaction and a better tenant experience.
Gathering customer feedback through open communication is certainly an important step in addressing the objectives of TSM, but housing providers must have a method for making sense of the critical data gathered to inform the experience they provide in the future.
This is where a case management system, acting as a single view of tenant records, is critical. This system, like Tenant Hub, should bring interactions across various subjects, including repairs, complaints, and other issues such as damp and mould, and anti-social behaviour, into a unified view. Such a system can be achieved using low-code solutions that accelerate the development process by offering simple, flexible drag-and-drop solutions to create new applications.
Using low-code application development software, housing providers can harness data from multiple legacy systems to streamline workflows, enabling digital services and creating connected, self-serve tenant experiences by having the right data, in the right place, at the right time.
Using tools with built-in reporting metrics will not only ease the burden on housing providers, ensuring they are ready to submit their results this summer, but also enable greater operational efficiencies in the future. Efficiency will lead to a more seamless and friction-free experience for customers and deliver opportunities for cost reduction across the organisation, offering a win-win situation for housing providers.
For more in-depth strategies on improving tenant engagement, explore our blog post: Improving Tenant Engagement in Social Housing: Key Strategies for Housing Associations.
With the pressure to meet TSM objectives while keeping tenant needs at the forefront, housing providers need smarter, more efficient ways of working. By embracing technologies like low-code, RPA, AI, and modern contact centre solutions, it’s possible to streamline operations, reduce manual effort, and deliver faster, more personalised service.
Netcall’s Liberty AI helps your housing services streamline processes, enhance decision-making, and deliver faster, more personalised service, all while staying tenant-focused. Want to see how it works in practice? Contact us today to find out more.
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