One of the most compelling statistics out of our villages.com.au National Resident Survey 2018 was the statistic that just 35% of the 19,500 residents surveyed felt valued as a customer by their operator.
We had been warned to expect a negative result by the leaders of state village resident associations when we were designing the survey but we didn’t expect this level of negative sentiment.
Customers who don’t feel valued certainly won’t be loyal customers.
Customers who don’t feel valued will happily discuss their grievances with regulators and the media.
Witness Aveo and the Four Corners/Fairfax coverage last year.
The resident associations sum up the problem as a ‘lack of communication and respect’.
Our research has proven this to be the case. And it manifests itself most obviously in the area of complaints, and more specifically the handling of complaints.
Put simply, where the village manager acknowledges and responds to a complaint the resident comes away generally happy, even if they did not get what they ideally wanted.
It is now clear that the majority of complaints however are not acknowledged and not responded to. The longer a resident is in a village, the greater the opportunity to have a complaint and the greater the opportunity to not be listened to and not be respected.
Here is the impact on the resident.
If they have not had a complaint they have a satisfaction rating of 8.5 and an NPS score of 45. If they have had a complaint satisfaction plummets to 6.7 and an NPS of -23.
Even worse if their complaint was not dealt with respectfully, fairly, quickly and sensitively their satisfaction plummets further to 6.0 and their NPS to -45.
The old marketing saying that quality research simply confirms what you already know is proven again.
Do your customers believe that you value them? Don’t assume; do the research and ask them.
If you would like to engage the National Resident Survey program for your villages email annaa@docomemonday.com.au. It will also allow you to benchmark your village/s against 550 other villages across Australia.
