Tenants Complaints Process - Update Board of Directors - June 24, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Tenants Complaints Process - Update

Board of Directors - June 24, 2020

Item 3B – Tenants Complaints Process – Update TCHC Board Meeting – June 24, 2020 Item 3B - Tenant Complaints Process Update Presentation

Background – Former Complaints Process

• TCHC established a complaints policy as early as 2002
• Complaints were distinguished from disagreements over

administrative decisions (such as rent calculations), subject to their own processes

• The past policy escalated complaints along the management

structure, ultimately ending with the CEO

• Application of this policy appears to have been inconsistent and

there is no evidence it resulted in a positive tenant experience

• The decentralized nature of the policy made for poor data

collection and uneven application of procedure

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Item 3B - Tenant Complaints Process Update Presentation

Background – Ombudsman Involvement

• As the Ombudsman points out, many tenants choose to escalate their

complaints outside of the TCHC management structure, directly to the CEO, to her office, or to council

• In late 2018 the Ombudsman’s office flagged concerns about the

TCHC complaints process – with regards to both public awareness and the overall effectiveness of the process

• As part of the restructuring plan of 2019 a new group, ‘Solutions’, was

established to resolve tenant complaints based on a pilot that was run in 2018

• TCHC has posted an explanation of the complaints process and

contact information for the Solutions team on its website

• TCHC has also shared this process on posters and in social media

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Item 3B - Tenant Complaints Process Update Presentation

New Process - Solutions

• The Solutions process is based on a single-stage escalation model,

managed by a centralized customer service function

• Solutions’ mandate is to intake complaints about the poor, delayed,

incomplete or otherwise unsatisfactory service from the call center or front-line staff

• Solutions can be accessed by mail, email, phone, or through an online

form

• Complaints that are escalated directly to the CEO or COO will also be

re-routed to Solutions

• Solutions will respond to tenants in 24 hours with an initial contact and

provide a written response to the complaint within seven business days

• The Solutions team is also responsible for maintaining the complaints

data set and for reporting complaints data internally once a week

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Item 3B - Tenant Complaints Process Update Presentation

Next Steps

• The new complaints process is not well known at this point.

Internal and external communications are the priority for next steps

• Internally, knowledge of the new process is being

communicated through a staff training process that is concurrent to the rollout of TCHC’s Service Hub model

• Non-essential external communications have been on hold

since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. TCHC has created posters to publicize the new process that will rollout at an appropriate time in the near future

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Item 3B - Tenant Complaints Process Update Presentation